The Longest Day
by LittleFairy78
Summary: Shawn and Lassiter are in trouble. The bad guys are on their way to Mexico, the other bad guys are after them, they're in the middle of nowhere and somehow have ended up cuffed together. It's just one of those days...Rated for some language and whump
1. This can't be happening

So here is the promised next story. It is already finished, so don't you worry about getting your updates.

But beware. This one is going to be long. Actually, it's a story plus sequel, both already finished. What can I say, it just sprawled endlessly after I started writing it. Sprawled into the over 120.000 word-length, actually ;-) And it went into a totally different direction than expected, just so you know.

It all started out with a challenge over at psychfic (dot) com, and this is what came out of it. You have been warned.

I hope you enjoy it.

**The Longest Day**

Challenge: Handcuffed by Potterwatch.

Two Psych characters get handcuffed together without a key at hand. Preferably have it be Shawn handcuffed to someone else for a day or longer since they can't find a key and don't have a spare one anywhere. Go crazy with it.

All right :D I'm good at going crazy with something.

Summary: When a case goes downhill, Shawn and Lassiter suddenly find themselves in the worst possible situation – alone, lost somewhere in the woods far away from civilization and help. The bad guys are after them, and they're pretty keen on killing them. Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, somehow Shawn and Lassiter also managed to get into this whole mess handcuffed together. Whether they want to or not, our favorite Psychic and head-detective have to work together to get out of this situation alive.

**Chapter 1 – This can't be happening**

It wasn't a good day.

It definitely wasn't a good day.

Oh, it had started out as fun, true enough. Most cases did. But Shawn guessed that this one was going to end on a not so happy note.

But in all honesty, what could Shawn have done differently? Those jewel thieves they had been trying to find had been too clever about covering their traces. He simply hadn't figured it all out earlier. And just for the record, he still had figured it out far earlier than either of the detectives involved in the case had.

That had to count for something.

Like for the rather improvised course of action Shawn had taken after he had finally figured it out.

There had been need to act quickly, the thieves were planning on escaping to Mexico after all. And the old saying clearly stated that _What goes to Mexico stays in Mexico_. No, rationally speaking there had been no other choice. Once Shawn had figured out where the thieves were hiding out, he had to get there.

There was no way he could be blamed.

After all, he had even called for backup before he left, tossing out a few random psychic visions or logic deductions respectively over the phone. But without much success.

Gus was on a date.

Juliet hadn't answered her phone.

His father had hung up on him.

So he had called Lassiter. And the detective had arrived at the warehouse only a few minutes after Shawn.

It certainly wasn't his fault.

Come on, whoever had stacked those shelves in the old warehouse with piles of statically highly unstable hubcaps had been inattentive to the point of negligent.

Anything could have sent them crashing to the floor just as Lassiter and Shawn approached the perps.

Anything.

A fly settling in the wrong place.

A gust of wind.

A truck driving by outside.

Someone in China with a bad cough.

Shawn's elbow accidentally grazing one of the shifty hubcaps.

And in the end it didn't matter what had sent them crashing to the floor.

Besides, there had been four thieves facing Lassiter and Shawn. They were outnumbered, in the most classical sense of the word. And Lassiter had adamantly refused to give Shawn a gun before they had entered the warehouse. Or to swear a secret-detective-partner-oath, come to think of it. Not that the oath would have changed a thing about their situation, but at least it would have been fun.

So no, considering all the facts it definitely wasn't Shawn's fault that the thieves had overpowered them rather quickly. And in all honesty Shawn was a little glad that one of the guys pointing a gun to Shawn's head had convinced Lassiter to lower his own weapon. After the hubcap disaster, he hadn't been totally sure that particular threat would convince the detective to surrender his gun.

But Lassiter had surrendered his weapon, and his backup, along with both their cell phones, and now he and Shawn were locked in the windowless back of a truck, shackled together with Lassiter's very own pair of handcuffs, the keys of which had also been confiscated by the jewel thieves.

No, it wasn't a good day.

And judging by the death glares the head detective was throwing in Shawn's direction every other moment, Lassiter thought so, too.

They hadn't spoken much since they had been tossed into the back of the van. Lassiter was glowering ahead darkly, and Shawn was busy trying to map their way in his mind. Since there were no windows that would have allowed them to look out this wasn't easy, but he was trying to take note of each turn they made. He was pretty sure that the had left the outskirts of the city in a north-eastern direction, but for the past half hour they had been driving straight ahead. Shawn guessed they were on a highway, so he was left with a rough estimate of their speed and the distance they were covering. It should help them a little once they tried to make their way back or call for help, but at the moment there was little chance of that.

"Where do you think we're going?"

Lassiter's head snapped up and the glare he turned towards Shawn was dark.

"I don't know Spencer. Aren't you the psychic around here?"

Shawn rolled his eyes. "Come on Lassie, don't be such a grumpy teddy-bear. It could be worse."

Lassiter raised both eyebrows.

"How could this possibly be any worse?"

Shawn shrugged. "They could have killed us, but they didn't. I wouldn't call that too bad."

The head detective rolled his eyes. "And it didn't occur to you that maybe they didn't want our bodies to be found until they're long out of the country? And that maybe they're driving us away from the city to kill us in a deserted place?"

"Not really. There's plenty of deserted places within a forty-five minute radius of Santa Barbara. Believe me, my father took me hiking in every single one of them. They want out of the country, why would they waste more time than absolutely necessary with discarding of us? No, I think they're driving us to a specific destination. And once we're

there, we can figure out a way to get out."

"Of course." Lassiter's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "With four armed men threatening us, I forgot that it'll all work out fine if we only believe."

"Now that's the spirit, Lassie!"

"Just shut up, Spencer."

Another thirty minutes later they left the highway and the road got rougher. There were too many twists and turns to keep track of all of them, and the bumps and potholes the van was driving across jostled the two men against each other and into the side wall of the vehicle.

They were on a dirt road, and Shawn had the feeling that the angle of the car had changed and they were driving upwards now.

An eternity passed until the car finally jerked to a sudden stop and the engine was killed. A moment later the sound of the two front doors slamming shut sounded hollowly in the back of the van. Shawn felt Lassiter tense beside him as steps came around the car and the back door was opened.

Two of the jewel thieves had left with a different car earlier, but the other two were still armed heavily enough to make a breakout attempt at this moment seem suicidal.

"Get out!" One of them barked and slowly Shawn and Lassiter scrambled to their feet. It was difficult with their backs and legs cramped after an our of sitting in the uncomfortable truck, and it wasn't made easier by Shawn's right hand being cuffed to

Lassiter's left.

They finally made it out of the car in an ungraceful stumble of arms and legs only to find themselves somewhere in the woods, in the middle of nowhere.

Shawn had been right about them driving upwards. They were somewhere in the mountains, far away from civilization. The only thing that still reminded of human presence up here was the small but sturdy looking hut they were standing in front of. It looked like an old hunting hut, but since it wasn't hunting season it was highly doubtful that anybody would accidentally find them here. Not within the next four months at least.

"In there. And don't do anything stupid, or I'll shoot you."

Slowly, the four men trotted over towards the hut. One of the thieves unlocked the front door which opened on squeaky hinges.

"Get in!"

"What, I don't get to carry Lassie over the threshold?"

The second guy roughly pushed Shawn into the hut's interior, but the momentum jerked so hard on the chain connecting their wrists that Lassiter stumbled inside, too, fell against Shawn's back and nearly threw both of them to the ground.

"Sweet justice, Spencer! Can't you ever keep that mouth of yours shut for longer than a minute?"

"I was just trying to lighten the mood a little."

"Over there," the first man barked and waved towards the hut's small bathroom with his gun. Like the rest of the hut, the bathroom was furnished sparsely, but functional. There was a toilet and a sink in there but no shower or tub. Shawn guessed that hunters weren't coming up here for the spa experience.

What probably was the real reason for the two thieves to bring them in here were the metal pipes that ran from beneath the sink into the wall.

Thief number one, the taller one who talked more, turned towards Lassiter. "All right, I'm going to uncuff your friend now. You will sit down here beside the sink and push the cuffs around the pipe. One wrong move, one stupid attempt at heroics, and we'll shoot your friend here, is that clear?"

"Yes," Lassiter grumbled.

"Good."

He pulled the key to the cuffs out of his pocket and unlocked the cuff around Shawn's right wrist. Shawn immediately began to rub his aching arm. Lassiter obediently sat down beside the sink and pushed the open half of the cuffs through the narrow space between pipe and wall.

"Now you sit down." The more talkative of the thieves instructed Shawn and pointed to the position on the other side of the sink. Shawn sat down, and immediately one of the men grabbed his arm and enclosed his wrist in the handcuff again. Shawn winced as the metal closed around his arm tighter than it had before.

"And what now?" Lassiter asked. "If you want to shoot us, it's a bit stupid to tie us up like that first."

That actually made the two men laugh.

"Oh no", the smaller one, the one who had pushed Shawn earlier, finally chuckled. "We're not going to kill you. You're too good a bargaining chip in case anything goes wrong before Miguel and Charlie cross the border with the diamonds."

"So you're just going to leave us here." It wasn't really a question, but that didn't seem to disturb their kidnapper, who seemed to be on a roll now.

"Only until our merchandise is safely in Mexico. They're going to call and we're going to have someone come up here and take care of you as soon as the two of us are safely in Mexico as well. It's a small price to pay for diamonds worth 5 million bucks. I'd do it myself, but I'll be sipping Margaritas with a beautiful woman by the time you're going to die."

He grinned dumbly, then checked one more time that the handcuffs were tight.

"So if there's any unresolved issues the two of you need to clear up, I suggest you start now. Miguel will be calling soon."

He wiggled his cell phone at them, sneered again and together the two men left the small bathroom. A moment later the front door was shut and locked, then the engine of the truck started and the car drove away.

Shawn sighed. "Well, that is something different than what I had planned for today, but let it never be said that a day spent with me ever gets boring."

"Very funny, Spencer. Could we interrupt the comedy routine for a few moments? Just until we've figured out a way to get out of this. I don't intend to stay around here until that call from Mexico comes. Those other two guys have at least a ninety minute head start towards the border, we don't have all day."

Shawn sat up straighter and looked at Lassiter.

"Gladly. You only seem to be forgetting one thing."

"Oh, and what's that?"

"This!" Shawn emphatically tugged at the handcuff so that the chain links rattled. "We're tied to each other, and in addition to that we're also tied to this pipe! So what do you suggest we do?"

Lassiter grinned. "Oh, I can think of something."

Somehow, the grin on the head detective's face didn't make Shawn feel any better.


	2. Take a left into the shrubbery

**Chapter 2 – Take a Left Into the Shrubbery and Follow Gravity**

"What do you mean, you can think of something?"

The grin on Lassiter's face had a feral quality to it, and Shawn didn't know if he liked that.

The detective just shrugged. "Well, we need to get those handcuffs out from behind the pipe."

Yes, and short of one of them squeezing his body through the two-inch gap between pipe and wall, Shawn only saw one other possible way.

"You're not going to go all Hannibal Lecter on me, are you?"

Lassiter frowned. "What? What has that got to do with anything?"

"Well, in the movie _Hannibal_, Lecter is handcuffed to that FBI agent in the end – you know, the agent who was played by Jodie Foster in _Silence of the Lambs_ but was played by that other chick in _Hannibal_ and they thought nobody would notice…"

"Spencer, your point being?"

"Well, Lecter leaves her the choice to get out of the handcuffs if she takes that big knife and…well, you know. Cuts off her hand."

Lassiter rolled his eyes and sighed a martyr's sigh. "Spencer, believe me. If I had a knife right now, I'd probably use it to pierce my eardrums so that I wouldn't have to listen to your blabbering anymore. But we don't have a knife, so why don't we postpone the part where we start chopping off body parts?"

"All right, so what is that plan of yours which will get us out of here with our body parts still attached?"

Lassiter shifted around so that he was facing the wall. "We won't get those cuffs off without a tool. So maybe we should try to get away fromthis pipe first."

"Gladly. There's only one problem, Lassie." Shawn gave the pipe an experimental tug. "That pipe is probably the most sturdy thing in this entire hut."

"The pipe might be sturdy, but the sink the pipe connects to isn't."

Shawn's eyes followed the detective's up to look at the sink. He didn't like to admit it, but Lassiter might be right. The sink wasn't new, and even if they couldn't break the sink as such, they might be able to kick it out of its fixtures in the wall. No matter how they did it, if they managed to get the sink out of the way they could slide the cuffs upwards and out from behind the pipe.

"You know what, Lassie? That might actually work."

"I know Spencer. So why don't we get to work?"

It took a lot of shifting around, and with their hands cuffed together like that their movements were extremely limited, but after a few moments they had both found a position that would give them some leverage. Shawn could imagine something better than lying on his back on the bathroom floor of a hunting hut of questionable hygiene, but right now there was no other way. He shifted closer to the wall, pressed his back into the wooden floorboards and raised his feet up to the bottom of the sink. To his left, Lassiter was going through similar motions.

The chain between the shackles of their handcuffs was too short to give them the leeway they needed, so both men ended up with their cuffed arms stretched out towards the pipe, making it awkward to find a position with enough leverage for kicking upward. Shawn wasn't too sure it would work, but he hoped that together the two of them would manage.

"Ready?" Lassiter asked.

"Ready." Shawn replied, trying to ignore the stinging sensation from the metal of the cuff biting into his wrist.

"On the count of three. One, two, three!"

Together, both Shawn and Lassiter kicked upwards against the sink. It shook slightly under the impact but didn't bulge.

"Again!" Lassiter shouted, and they kicked again. "Once more!"

With each kick, the sink shook a bit more, but whoever had fixed that thing into the wall had done a pretty thorough job of it. Sweat was running down Shawn's face, he was panting from exhaustion and his wrist was aching fiercely from the strain, but he kept on kicking up against the sink.

Finally, the sink fixture seemed to be loosening.

"Just a few more times," Lassiter panted, and Shawn renewed his effort at kicking up with full force. Shawn's and Lassiter's feet connected simultaneously with the porcelain of the sink and Shawn felt it give.

A split second after the sink broke off the wall, Shawn realized the flaw in their plan. What came up had to come down. And now that the sink was no longer fixed to the wall, the pipe couldn't support its weight and it came soaring down straight towards Shawn's and Lassiter's heads.

"Watch out!"

Shawn's yell was lost in the sound of the sink crashing to the floor right between their heads.

For a few moments, Shawn simply lay there with his eyes closed, panting from the exertion.

"You all right Spencer?" Lassiter asked after a few seconds.

Shawn nodded. "Yeah. You?"

"Yes. Let's get out of here."

They scrambled to their feet awkwardly. The cuffs were free of the bent pipe now, but they were still limiting the movements of Shawn's and Lassiter's respective arms.

"All right, let's see if we can find anything to get those damn cuffs off."

Shawn heartily agreed to Lassiter's statement. The sooner he could get farther than a foot away from Lassiter, the better.

They moved out of the bathroom into the main room of the hut. Since it was unused, much of the room was empty. There was a small kitchen area to the left with a gas stove, two small cupboards, a table and two wooden chairs. To the right were two bunk beds and a wooden chest of drawers. Shawn took a step towards the chest of drawers, but was immediately pulled back by a sharp tug against his right wrist. Lassiter had started into the direction of the kitchen instead and was now glowering at the fake psychic.

"This way, Spencer."

"You know, we might want to work on our communication now that we can't go our separate ways."

Lassiter's stare was still dark. "You will go where I tell you to go, how's that for ways of communication?"

Shawn rolled his eyes. "Some people would see this as an opportunity to get to know each other better, a chance to work through previous misunderstandings. It's a trust exercise, Lassie."

Lassiter tugged sharply at the handcuff to make Shawn move again. "It's an exercise in patience, nothing else. Even if I have to gnaw through those cuffs, I will not stay tied to you for any longer than necessary."

"Ah, the spirits tell me that you'll change your mind about that."

"Tell the spirits to shut up and start looking for something we could use to get these cuffs open. Pliers, a hammer, a saw, a piece of wire, anything."

Shawn followed Lassiter over towards the kitchen cupboards. "All right, all right. Let's see what we've got here."

For the next minutes, they rifled through every cupboard and drawer in the entire hut. Their coordination was still off and Shawn was unused to using his left hand. His automatic reaction was to move his right hand towards a drawer or a cupboard, and only when the pull of Lassiter's left hand stopped his movement did he remember about the cuffs. It was awkward to be doing things with the wrong hand, but with a bit of focus it worked.

Ten minutes later, they had looked everywhere.

"How can there not even be a small piece of wire around?" Lassiter asked in a disbelieving voice.

"Hunting season won't start for another few months. My guess is that whoever normally uses this hut took everything with them when they left. After all, who comes up here at this time of year?"

Lassiter sighed and ran his free right hand through his hair. "All right, sooner or later we'll find something. For now, we need to get out of here before the cleanup crew arrives."

Their newly found friends had locked the front door on their way out, but Lassiter didn't think long before he grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and smashed it through one of the front windows.

Shawn flinched as the window exploded underneath the onslaught, and only as the tinkling of the falling shards ebbed away, Shawn dared to look up at the head detective again. "I can see those anger-management classes really paid off, Lassie."

Lassiter cleared the last of the glass shards away from the windowsill without so much as a look at Shawn. "I tend to get a little grumpy if people try to kill me, Spencer."

"You also tend to get a little grumpy when people are trying to help you solve your cases."

"Don't even start this. You don't want me to start contemplating whose fault it is that we ended up here in the first place."

"What?" Shawn couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You're saying this is my fault now?"

"You were the one who wouldn't stay in the car. You were the one who insisted on going into that warehouse in the first place. You were the one who tossed over a shelf with hubcaps so that there was no doubt left as to where we were hiding! Do you really want me to reconsider that Hannibal method you mentioned earlier?"

Shawn rolled his eyes. "All right." He waved his free left hand towards the window. "After you, mighty detective."

Fortunately, the window wasn't that high above the floor. Lassiter at least had no problem climbing through, but then again he had the advantage of longer legs. With his right hand already hanging out of the window it was a bit more difficult for Shawn to hoist himself up onto the windowsill and out of the hut.

As it happened, his foot got stuck on the windowsill and threw him off balance. Instinctively, Shawn tried to put both hands in front of himself to brace his fall. There was a sharp tug on his right arm, a grunt and then a stinging pain in his wrist. The next thing he knew was that he was lying flat on his stomach, up close and personal with the gravel outside.

Lassiter was crouching beside him, his right hand rubbing against where the handcuff was enclosed around his left wrist.

"In the name of all that's good, you can never do anything normally, can you? Can't you even climb out of the window without making a scene?"

Shawn slowly scrambled back to his feet and brushed the dust off his jeans. "Yes, let's all laugh a bit about the guy who fell out the window. Can we go now?"

He started to move towards the dirt road they had taken here, but Lassiter remained standing where he was. As he felt his right arm being pulled back by the handcuffs, Shawn sighed and turned around.

"What is it now, Lassie?"

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know, away from the place where our killers should arrive soon?"

"Spencer, we're in the middle of nowhere here, if we don't make a plan before heading out, we can as well stay here and wait for them to come and kill us."

Shawn rolled his eyes. "We drove in a roughly south eastern direction once we left Santa Barbara. I'm no expert, but I think we might want to try a general north western heading. Besides, we're in the mountains and this is the only road I see. It might sound like a crazy idea, but how about we follow it for a while? We only need to get to the highway. Highway means civilization, civilization means we can get help."

Lassiter rolled his eyes. "And it never occurred to you that the guys who are coming to kill us are right now on their way up the mountain, on this very road you insist on following?"

"Considering the alternative? I think I might just give it a shot. So can we go now or do you want to discuss this to death, literally?"

Lassiter grumbled something, but he seemed to see the validity of Shawn's argument and the two men began trotting down the dirt road. Involuntarily, they fell into step next to each other, the handcuffs connecting them forcing their arm movements to align.

The dirt road hadn't even earned the term road, actually, it was more of a beaten gravel path sneaking up the mountain. To their right, the slope of the mountains was rising up, and to the left of the road the hillside fell steeply downwards. All the slopes were overgrown with bushes and greenery, and even the dirt road was starting to overgrow with vegetation between the gravel. The tire tracks of the truck had flattened the grass and weeds and were still clearly visible.

"How long do you think it took us to drive up here once we left the main road?" Shawn asked after a few minutes.

Lassiter thought silently. "I'm not sure. Maybe half an hour after we drove off the normal road."

"I figured something like that. The guys can't have gone too fast on this kind of road, not with such a steep slope directly beside it. We're walking down, which should save us some time, but we're on foot. Might take us two hours at the least to get to the end of this road, if we don't find a way to cut it short."

Lassiter nodded. "Not going to find a shortcut on a slope that steep. I guess we have no choice but to keep walking along and hope that those other guys don't come towards us."

Shawn raised his hand to point – his right hand, automatically, until the pull of the chain stopped the movement. He looked at the cuffs in irritation, then let his hand sink down again.

"You know Lassie, that's exactly what I don't understand."

"What?"

"This whole setup is completely irrational. Bringing us to this hut, I mean. Until then everything makes sense, but this whole scenario is grotesque."

Lassiter shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on Lassie, think about it. There were four guys involved in the jewel heist. We caught them in that warehouse and they turned the tables on us."

"Which they wouldn't have if you had stayed in the car like I told you."

Shawn rolled his eyes. "Anyway, they couldn't kill us right there because they couldn't be sure that they'd make it to Mexico before somebody found our bodies."

Lassiter nodded. "Right. But that does make sense. Two of the guys drive ahead with the diamonds. I don't know how they're planning on getting them across the border, but judged by how carefully they planned the heist, I'm sure they have a plan for that as well. So two guys drive ahead and the other two stash us away until they're sure that the diamonds are in Mexico."

"Exactly!" Again, the cuffs stopped the upwards movement of Shawn's right arm and he let it drop with an irritated sigh. "But that tells us something, doesn't it? If they were acting alone, just the four of them, there'd be no need to involve yet another party into all this. The more confidants, the riskier it all gets."

Lassiter's face pulled into a frown as he mulled these thoughts over. "So you're saying the four guys we saw aren't the only ones involved?"

Shawn shrugged. "It's the only explanation that makes sense. It would be extremely dumb to hire somebody else just to tie up their loose ends."

Lassiter thought about this for a while. "So the crew consists of four thieves who have the know-how to rob the jewels from the bank's vault plus another unidentified number of guys for the dirty work?"

"Probably. I mean, crews on that skill level often work together for more than one heist. The four guys we met weren't the brute force of this whole thing. They were the minds, the ones who planned and executed the actual job. But that doesn't mean there wasn't anybody else involved. Somebody had to finance it, and somebody had to provide brute force in case it was needed."

Lassiter nodded in acknowledgement. "It actually makes sense. Our four thieves are in more immediate danger of being found out. They need to get out of the country before the police picks up their trail. The trace leads to them, not to the others, so those guys can calmly tidy up every trace that leads to them before they follow their friends to Mexico. It actually does make sense."

"Don't sound too surprised." Shawn said indignantly. "It's not the first case I solved."

"No." Lassiter grumbled. "Unfortunately it isn't. But right now this doesn't help us any in stopping those guys before they get across the border. Even if we manage to get to a real road in two hours, find a car and call Border Patrol, we probably won't be able to stop them in time."

Silently, the two continued walking along the dirt road. They were approaching yet another bend in the road when Lassiter suddenly stopped short. Shawn came to a halt beside the detective.

"What is it?"

"Don't you hear that?"

Shawn strained his ears. True enough, there was something else than the chirping of the birds and the rustling of the wind in the trees.

"A car."

Lassiter nodded. "A truck, by the sound of it."

"That can't be the cleanup crew already, can it?"

"Either that, or somebody else accidentally happens to come by this deserted place. How big do you think the chances of that are?"

Shawn quickly checked their surroundings. Rise of the mountain to the right, downhill slope of the mountain to the left. There were bushes farther down the downhill slope, but no hiding place was in sight anywhere in the immediate vicinity.

"What now?"

Lassiter didn't answer Shawn's question, but his eyes were roaming around, and judged from the look on his face he was coming to the same conclusion Shawn had. There was nowhere to hide.

"There's nowhere for us to hide. There wasn't any good hiding place behind us, either. The truck is still a bit off, we need to hurry forward and hope that we'll find somewhere to hide before it comes into sight."

Shawn nodded and the two broke into a run. The truck's engine sounds still sounded quite a distance away, but there was another bend of the road ahead and there was no way to know whether or not that and the mountains were deceiving them about the real distance.

Running with shackled hands was more difficult than walking. Lassiter's stride was longer than his own, and Shawn had to struggle to keep up. They reached the bend and carefully peered around. No sign of the car approaching them, but another bend was just a few hundred yards ahead. As soon as they rounded the corner, the sound of the engine was getting noticeably louder.

"There's nothing here," Shawn panted. "No place to hide."

Lassiter nodded without saying a word. The scenery around them hadn't changed, and it was obvious to both men that it wouldn't change behind the next corner, either. They couldn't go back, they couldn't go upwards because it was too steep and they couldn't do down the slope without breaking their necks, either.

The sounds of the truck were incredibly loud by now, and Shawn knew that it was right behind the bend. They needed to figure something out, and fast.

"There!"

Shawn stopped and pointed to a group of low bushes just below the road. They didn't provide much protection, but the ground was not quite as steep behind them. If they lay down flat on their stomachs behind the bushes, there was a chance that they might not be seen.

And it wasn't as if they had any other choice.

Quickly, the two hurried off the road. Immediately, the ground became too steep to run, and carefully the two stumbled over towards the bushes.

Just as they threw themselves flat on the ground the truck came driving around the bend. Shawn tried not to move as he peered up through the greenery. It was a black pickup truck, nothing extraordinary about it. The passenger side window was open and Shawn could clearly see the profile of the man sitting in the passenger seat. As suspected, he had not seen him before, it was none of the four men who had been in that warehouse.

Music was sounding through the open window of the truck. Shawn watched with bated breath as it drove past them.

Then suddenly the man in the passenger seat looked directly at the bushes Shawn and Lassiter were hiding behind. Their eyes actually met and Shawn could have sworn that the guy was looking directly at him. But then the driver of the truck said something and the guy laughed and turned away again.

It felt like an eternity until the truck had vanished around the next bend and Shawn dared to breathe again. With a sigh he let his head drop to the ground.

"Damn, that was close" Lassiter breathed.

Shawn could only wholeheartedly agree to that. Heart still beating fast in his chest, Shawn slowly sat up.

"We need to get going again" Lassiter said as he brushed the dust off his jacket. "It won't take them too long to notice that we're gone."

"All right, then let's get back on the road."

Shawn took a step towards the road ahead of them when suddenly the ground beneath his feet began to break away. It all happened too fast – one moment he was standing firmly, the next he was stumbling, waving his arms in a futile attempt to keep his balance. Rocks were tumbling down the slope around him, and from the corner of his eye Shawn saw Lassiter reach out with his free hand to steady him. Shawn reached for the offered hand but it was already too late.

His feet lost their footing entirely and suddenly Shawn was falling. There was a sharp tug at his right wrist, a shout, and then all Shawn could see was a jumble of blue, green and brown as he fell down the hill and pulled Lassiter along behind him.


	3. I already took a shower today

**Chapter 3 – I already took a shower today, thank you very much**

Being a human rockslide hurt.

Within the fragment of a moment, Shawn was unable to tell which way was up and which way was down. All he could see were jumbled pictures of sky, shrubbery, rocks and dirt flashing before his eyes in a sickeningly fast slideshow. He could feel his body rolling downhill, smashing against rocks and hard earth and crashing through bushes and greenery. His momentum was too fast, there was no way to stop his descent. Desperately, Shawn tried to bring up his arms to protect his head, but his right arm refused to follow his command.

It hurt.

He couldn't even tell where he hurt exactly. His shoulders, head, ribs, legs, all his body parts at one point connected with the hard surface of the mountain slope. His cheek slid along the hard earth for a few seconds. But adrenaline was running high during the sickening slide down the slope so that Shawn felt no specific pain.

There was no time to feel anything.

He didn't even know if he was still breathing. He might be holding his breath, or maybe he was screaming. He couldn't tell.

And suddenly, after what felt like hours of falling, it stopped.

One moment he was falling, the next his body impacted and all movement stopped. The impact forced all the air from his lungs and he simply lay there, face down, unable to even muster up enough control over his body to open his eyes. His whole body felt icy and his heartbeat was thumping loudly in his own ears, drowning out all other noise.

He needed to breathe, needed to sigh in relief that this rollercoaster ride from hell was over now, but found that he couldn't.

He couldn't breathe.

Panic rose immediately, and his heart started pumping furiously in his chest.

It felt like an icy iron band that was crushing his chest together, leaving him unable to make even the tiniest motion required to draw breath.

He couldn't breathe!

Frantically, Shawn started jerking, but his movements felt sluggish, impaired, and he couldn't shift his body into another position.

He couldn't breathe.

He was going to die.

Was he already dead?

His lungs were burning fiercely, every cell in his body screaming for oxygen but he couldn't breathe.

Suddenly, hands went around his chest, gripping him, squeezing his already aching lungs together even more fiercely. Shawn tried to bat the hands away, tried to stop them from hurting him, but he couldn't move.

He opened his mouth to scream, to scream or to breathe, he couldn't tell, when the hands started pulling at him and suddenly his head broke through the water into fresh air.

He gulped in deep lungs full of sweet air, coughing and breathing – finally _breathing_ – unable to do anything else for the next long moments. The sound of his heart hammering away in his chest gradually lessened, and he became aware of other sounds around him: the chirping of birds, the sound of water dripping and splashing, the ragged breathing of somebody close to his ear. The sound of somebody talking.

Wait.

Somebody was talking. Actually, it sounded more like panting, but it were definitely words.

"Damn it Spencer, open your eyes."

His eyes were closed? Maybe he should change that.

It took a lot more effort than it should have, but Shawn managed to pry his lids apart.

The first thing he saw was water. The surface of a river. Well, not really a river. This wasn't the Mississippi, but it was definitely wider and deeper than an ordinary mountain spring.

The hands that were still holding him around his chest heaved him up a little, and suddenly there was ground beneath his feet. He didn't know if his legs would carry his weight on their own, but the hands were still holding him upright.

And finally he could see Lassiter standing close to him, supporting him. The detective looked like something that had been chewed, swallowed and spit out again. Like Shawn he was drenched to the bone, his clothes were torn in all possible places and a thin rivulet of blood was running down the side of his face.

"Lassie?" Shawn coughed out.

Lassiter rolled his eyes, but something like relief crossed his face for a second.

"We need to get out of the water. Do you think you can walk?"

Shawn nodded even though he wasn't sure that he could. But Lassiter kept his right arm around Shawn's waist as they waded though the hip-high water towards firm ground. Shawn was still panting heavily as they stumbled onto the riverbank. There was an old tree standing close to the water where they came out, and with a grateful sigh Shawn sat down and leaned his back against the tree to support him. His eyes automatically closed in exhaustion.

Damn, that water had been cold. He was drenched to the bone, and now that the adrenaline was slowly wearing off, the pain started. He couldn't even tell where it hurt most, his whole body seemed to be in various degrees of agony.

"You never do anything halfway, don't you Spencer? Only you can turn the act of hiding behind bushes into a rollercoaster ride without a rollercoaster!"

With a lot of effort, Shawn opened his eyes again and looked over towards Lassiter.

"Are you all right? You're bleeding."

Lassiter made a sound that could have been a chuckle. "So are you." His hand went up to the cut just beneath his hairline that was still oozing blood. "It's just a small cut, I'll survive. Your face on the other hand looks like you tried to break the fall with your cheek."

Shawn raised his right hand to bring it up against his face, but a sharp stab of pain in his shoulder stopped the movement before the restraint of the handcuff could. He cried out and his left hand shot up to reach for his right shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Lassiter shifted around so that he was facing Shawn.

"My shoulder" Shawn panted. "Something's wrong with my shoulder. I can't move my arm."

Lassiter knelt down right in front of Shawn and carefully peeled Shawn's torn shirt away from his shoulder. He didn't touch the shoulder, but he carefully inspected it for a few moments.

"I'm afraid your shoulder is dislocated, Spencer."

Shawn groaned and let his head drop back against the tree trunk.

"Can you set it?"

Lassiter ran a hand through his hair. "Yes. You ever dislocated a shoulder before?"

Shawn nodded. "The left one when I was a kid. But never the right one."

"Well, the handcuff is on your right wrist, no small wonder that the fall tore that joint out of its socket. But we should set it immediately, before the muscles tense up."

Shawn nodded. "All right. What do I need to do?"

"Sit straight and don't move."

As Shawn sat straight against the tree trunk, Lassiter made sure that Shawn's upper arm was parallel to his body. He bent the arm at the elbow and held Shawn's hand pressed against his stomach.

"Can you make a fist?"

Shawn nodded, but the movement was laboriously and the fist was not as tight as it'd normally have been. Lassiter held Shawn's wrist with one hand and closed his other hand around Shawn's forearm.

"I'm going to move your arm outward now. That might hurt. Ready?"

Shawn nodded, his eyes screwed shut tightly. "Just get it over with."

Lassiter started to move Shawn's lower arm outwards. Shawn hissed loudly and dug the heels of his feet into the ground as the movement sent white hot tendrils of pain all through his shoulder.

Lassiter continued to bend the arm outwards, and all of a sudden Shawn felt his shoulder react to the movement. A moment later, the joint popped back into its socket with a last, agonizing stab of pain.

Shawn cried out and screwed his eyes shut as tightly as possible, whishing he could only black out for a few minutes, just until the pain was gone.

But as soon as the joint was back in place the pain lessened remarkably. When Shawn opened his eyes again he found that he was doubled over, his right arm still held at an angle and his hand pressed against his stomach. His position forced Lassiter to his left side, crouching beside him with his free hand against Shawn's back.

"We should fix your arm in place."

Shawn shook his head. "We can hardly fix my arm in place for as long as you're cuffed to it. What do you plan to do, walk in front of me? Besides, we don't have anything to use for a sling, anyway."  
"In any case you shouldn't move the arm too much until a doctor has looked at the shoulder. There might be muscle damage, or torn ligaments."

Shawn nodded with a grimace. "Sure. Do you think anybody makes house calls to the wilderness?"

"Very funny, Spencer. Do you think you can stand up? Because I'm afraid that once our friends in the truck find the hut empty, they won't have much difficulties figuring out where exactly we went off the road."

For the first time since they had come crashing down the slope, Shawn raised his head to look up at the road from where they had fallen. Their tumble down the mountainside had left a clearly visible trail of flattened grass and disturbed dirt, not to mention the noticeable gaps in the bushes their fall had caused. Shawn could only imagine how this must look like from the street level, but it was obvious that the trail of their fall would stick out at first sight to any passer by, especially to somebody who was looking for them.

Shawn cursed softly under his breath. "We really should get going."

Gingerly supporting himself on the left hand, Shawn got to his feet. His whole body ached, his shoulder was throbbing in time with his heartbeats, but as he tried to put his weight on his left ankle a sharp pain shot up his left leg. He must have winced, because Lassiter turned towards him again.

"Don't tell me that you broke your leg, Spencer."

Shawn shook his head. "It's the ankle. I must have twisted it in the fall. But it's not that bad, I can walk."

At least he hoped so. He was wearing his boots, that should keep the ankle somewhat steady. Shawn looked around them. They were on a stretch of slightly more even ground, but down here the greenery was also thicker, making it more difficult to keep oriented.

"Where are we going now?"

"Good question, Spencer. Going up to the road again is out of the question." He looked up into the sky. "If we want to go into a north western direction, we can try walking downstream for a while, it runs in that direction and we can stay out of sight of the road. No matter where we go, we can only hope that the terrain doesn't get too steep for us to walk."

Shawn nodded. "All right. But since we already left such a huge trail down the slope, we might try to backtrack upstream a little." He looked at the mud all around them in which their steps were clearly visible. "It will take them a few minutes to get safely down the slope, but once they're here they'll immediately see where we went."

Lassiter nodded. "So we'll walk a few hundred yards upstream, then get into the water and wade downstream. That's going to be cold."

Suddenly, a sound from up on the road made both Shawn and Lassiter look up. As they looked, the black pickup truck slowly drove into view.

"Damn." Lassiter cursed. "We don't have time for any backtracking. Come on Spencer, we need to leave, now!"

It was easier said than done. Shawn's ankle was stinging with every step he took, the ground they were moving on was uneven, overgrown and simply not made for running, and though it was obvious that Lassiter was trying to keep his left arm as still as possible, running meant moving his shoulder, and for Shawn that meant pain.

Behind and above them the sound of the truck's engine stopped and they heard a few shouted words, but the voices were too far away to make out what was being said.

After a few hundred yards, the stream made another bend and the ground started to slope downwards again. By now they were surrounded by thicker vegetation on either side and could no longer see the road above them. There wasn't much time left for thinking while running and trying to stay upright, but in those few seconds of clear thought he could afford Shawn wondered what direction they were going in.

Dashing madly through the woods was one thing, but it wasn't a plan that was going to get them any further in the long run. As soon as they had brought some distance between themselves and the guys from the truck they needed to make a plan.

If only they had managed to get those blasted handcuffs off. Walking with them was already difficult enough, running was a totally different feat altogether. Lassiter had the longer stride, he was always half a step ahead of Shawn, which meant that Shawn did not only have to watch his footing but also needed to have an eye out on where Lassiter was going.

At least the ground beneath their feet was no longer muddy, so there was a halfway decent chance that their trail was not immediately noticeable.

Shawn was tempted to keep trying to look over his shoulder, but he stopped himself. There was nothing there to see. The guys would take at least ten minutes to get safely down the slope if they didn't want to take the fast and risky route he and Lassiter had taken. They still had a head start, they only needed to make sure that the others didn't get a chance to catch up.

They kept running wordlessly along the stream, but the longer they were running the more often one of them stumbled. Shawn at least knew that he couldn't go on like this for any longer.

"Lassie!" He panted. Lassiter kept on running as if he hadn't heard, but Shawn didn't want to stop without a warning. If Lassiter kept running the pull of the handcuffs would only tear at his shoulder again.

"Carlton!"

This time, Lassiter heard him and stopped. The detective was breathing heavily.

"What is it? Do you need a break?"

Shawn shook his head. "No. Well, yes. But that's not it."

"What is it, Spencer? If those guys are so close behind us, we need to hurry."

"We're just running blindly ahead. We're making too much noise and we don't even know where we're going. We need a plan."

Lassiter ran his free hand through his hair and looked around them. "All right. So what do you suggest we do?"

Shawn closed his eyes and tried to focus. It wasn't easy, not with various of his body parts screaming in agony, but they needed a plan now.

"Mountain roads often go in serpentines, right? Or they lope around the mountain in circles. So if we head straight downhill, chances are good that sooner or later we'll end up crossing the road again."

"The guys who want to kill us have a _car_, Spencer. Even if we can make better time on the road than here in the woods, they'll catch up with us a lot faster there, too."

Shawn shook his head. "Right now they're crawling down the mountain and searching for us. It was two guys, right? One driver and the guy in the passenger seat. They'd be stupid if only one of them went after two fleeing men. So right now they're also here in the woods, searching for us. Getting back to their car will take them a lot of time, it's a chance we have to take."

"Do you think you can climb down steeper slopes with your ankle?"

Shawn shrugged. "It's not as if I had any other choice. And in any case it's better than storming ahead blindly."

Lassiter wiped at his face with the torn sleeve of his suit jacket. The gash on his head had stopped bleeding by now, but sweat had mingled with the blood on his face and by now his whole cheek was covered in red.

Only now did Shawn notice just how much the fall had roughed up the detective. What remained of Lassiter's suit jacket was hanging off him in shreds and the only reason why he was still wearing it was that with the cuff on his wrist he couldn't get his arm out of the sleeve. His trousers were torn, too, and a huge tear in the left leg of his pants revealed a bloody gash beneath.

With a frown Shawn looked down at himself for the first time since their fall. His shirt was torn, that much he had already seen earlier, but not he noticed the two huge holes in the fabric of his jeans, right over his knees, and the large tear on the back of his thigh. There was blood and dirt all over him, even in places he hadn't noticed as painful before. He couldn't see the right side of his face, but it felt as if it was on fire from scraping along the hard earth during their fall. Sweat running into the wounds certainly didn't help matters any.

But they had no choice and no time to dwell on scrapes and bruises, they needed to get going.

As they moved away from the stream towards the more steep descent of the slope, their going was getting more difficult.

Lassiter went ahead, using his right hand to balance himself against trees whenever possible. It was obvious that he was trying to use his left hand as little as possible so as to not jar Shawn's injured shoulder. It was a nice gesture, but it was completely useless. Shawn was right handed, it was an automated reflex for him to move that arm whenever he wanted to balance himself, despite the pain that moving his arm caused.

Lassiter stopped and pointed ahead. "We should try to stay a little to the right, there's plenty of trees to brace against. We shouldn't risk another fall."

"Oh, really? Good that you told me, I was just about to suggest we tackle this hill the human cannonball-way."

"Listen Spencer, there's no audience around right now. You don't need to entertain Guster or try to impress O'Hara with your wits and charms. Cut it out!"

"So you're saying you're immune to my wits and charms?"

Lassiter let out a suffering sigh as he carefully took a few sideward steps down the hillside. "Could we please just focus on getting out of this alive? If your wits and charms or maybe your alleged psychic abilities have any help to offer, spit it out, and if not then do me a favor and try to do this like you've never done anything before."

Shawn frowned. "How?"

"Silently."

Shawn rolled his eyes. "You simply aren't fun."

"Fun?" Lassiter actually stopped for a second and turned to look at Shawn. "You're talking about _fun_? We're climbing down a steep mountainside, we're being followed by armed men who want to kill us, we've just fallen down a thirty-foot slope which left you with a dislocated shoulder and a sprained ankle, we're cuffed together and we're miles away from anything resembling civilization. Where, pray tell, is the _fun_ in that?"

Shawn sighed as he carefully made his way down the mountain behind the detective. "I don't think this situation is in the least funny, believe me. But I don't think that walking around with the face of somebody on the way to their own funeral is going to help matters, either."

Lassiter took another step and the ground beneath his food shifted. He lost his balance for a second and desperately waved his arms in an attempt to regain it. Shawn quickly made sure that his own footing was secure, then he grabbed Lassiter's arm and pulled the detective back.

Lassiter stumbled backwards, his balance completely gone, and fell back. He didn't land on his back, however, but took more of a tumble onto his left side. The movement pulled Shawn along, but he at least managed to sit down more gracefully. For a long moment Lassiter lay there, panting and unmoving, his face a mask of pain. Shawn watched the other man with rising worry. The fall had not been that hard, it had been more of an adrenaline shock than anything serious.

Shawn got up to his knees beside the fallen detective.

"Lassie? Carlton, what's wrong?"

Lassiter grimaced and slowly lifted himself into a halfway upright position. "I'm all right Spencer."

Shawn raised both eyebrows. "Sure you are. That's why you look as if you're in serious pain from a simple fall to your butt."

Lassiter sighed and sat up more straightly. He tried to keep his face impassive, but still the pain shone through. "I think I cracked a rib or two earlier."

"What? Why didn't you say anything?"

"There wasn't exactly time for it. The first thing I saw after our fall ended was you floating facedown in the water. Then we had to set your shoulder and once that was done those guys were already on top of the slope. There simply was no time. Besides, we can't do anything about a cracked rib out here, anyway. And it didn't stop me from running before. I only need to catch my breath for a moment."

Shawn sighed and ran his free hand through his hair.

"Anything else I should know about? Or do you want to wait until our next near-fall before you tell me that you've lost feeling in your left leg or that you're seeing double?"

"Believe me Spencer, if on top of everything else I was seeing _you_ double, I'd gladly throw myself off this mountain just to make it stop."

"Lassie! Where else are you hurt?"

Lassiter sighed. "The pull on the cuffs didn't dislocate my shoulder, but I definitely pulled something. And there's something wrong with my wrist."

Shawn looked down at the detective's left hand. The skin around his wrist was red and raw where the metal of the cuffs had chafed it, but Shawn's own wrist didn't look any different. Shawn reached across and pulled Lassiter's free right hand over. Compared the uncuffed wrist, Lassiter's left wrist was definitely swollen.

"If this swells any further, the cuffs will get too tight and you'll get problems with your circulation."

Lassiter sighed and pulled his hands free from Shawn's grasp. "I know, but unless you've got an ice-pack hidden away somewhere, there's nothing we can do about it now. Besides, I'm used to not being able to move my left hand."

Shawn remembered the detective's mysteriously broken collarbone a few months ago and nodded. Now he understood that the care Lassiter had taken to move his left hand as little as possible had had nothing to do with Shawn's dislocated shoulder. Lassiter had been in pain all the time and had not lost a single word about it.

"All right, we'll just try not to jar the hand around too much. Anything else I need to know about?"

Lassiter shook his head. "No. Too many scratches and bruises to count them, but you don't look as if you were faring any better. Nothing that keeps me from walking."

"Good. Than we should continue getting down this mountain."

Suddenly, a shout somewhere behind them broke the silence, and the two men quickly scrambled back to their feet.

"Any idea how close that was?"

Shawn shook his head. "No way to tell. Let's just put as much distance between them and us as possible."

It was easier said than done. Climbing the steep hillside was difficult enough, but with adrenaline running high and the fear of their pursuers closing in on them any second now it got only more difficult.

For the next minutes, all Shawn could hear was the sound of his own and Lassiter's panted breaths as they half-climbed, half-slid down the mountain, using trees for support whenever possible, and silently praying for balance whenever there was no tree to hold on to around.

There were no other sounds coming from behind them, no more shouts or other signs that their pursuers were on their trail, but Shawn didn't delude himself.

They might not be sliding out of control like they had done earlier, but it was completely impossible to wipe the trail of their descent.

After what seemed like a small eternity of thinking about nothing but the next safe step, the ground beneath their feet began to even out again a little. The underbrush was getting thicker, providing more cover from anybody looking from above. But there was one thing that was nowhere in sight.

"Where is that damn road?" Lassiter panted.

"It has to lope back at some point. We just have to keep going."

They kept on running through the trees, trying to make a straight line. Shawn was worried that sooner or later they'd end up walking in circles if they didn't find a landmark to orient themselves. But they needed to keep straight if they wanted to find the road again. If they got lost in the woods, they'd never make it out of this alive.

Shawn's lungs were burning from the exhaustion. He knew that he wouldn't be able to keep going at this pace for much longer. But Lassiter was not faring any differently. By now, the detective was actually running half a step behind Shawn, and when Shawn looked over his shoulder he found that Lassiter's face was a grimace of pain.

He slowed his steps to a trot, and Lassiter immediately stopped.

"Trouble breathing?"

Lassiter was bent over, his hands on his thighs for support. He nodded wordlessly, without even raising his head.

"We can't keep going at this pace."

Lassiter shook his head. "No. We can't. I can't."

Shawn looked at their surroundings for a moment, his mind racing with possibilities. Straight ahead was the way that hopefully led them to the road at one point. Behind them were their pursuers, and that was exactly what the problem was.

For as long as those guys were chasing them, they couldn't control the situation. They needed to know who and where their pursuers were. They needed to turn the tables, and judged by the lines of pain on Lassiter's face and by the throbbing in Shawn's own shoulder and ankle, it was now or never.

Then he saw it.

There was a steep rocky rise to their left, parts of which had broken off at some point to tumble down the mountain. But that's not what Shawn set his eyes on; he knew that they wouldn't be able to climb the rise even though the plateau on top promised momentary safety.

But what Shawn saw was the rocky outcrop near the bottom of the rise, maybe twenty inches high and twice as wide. It was an overhang, not immediately visible because of all the shrubbery growing below and around the rocks. With a bit of luck they should both be able to squeeze themselves underneath and out of sight. At least it looked just about long and wide enough to hide them. If those two thugs didn't look really close they might just miss Shawn and Lassiter and continue downhill.

Shawn started running towards the rise and the overhang, with Lassiter following behind in a somewhat confused daze.

"Spencer, what…"

"Get down here!"

Lassiter eyed the overhang for a second, then he looked back at Shawn.

"You've got to be kidding me!"

Shawn shook his head impatiently. "No. Listen Lassie, we don't have much time. For how long do you think can we still outrun those guys? You have a hard enough time breathing already."

"So you want us to crawl underneath this rock?"

"I want us to get out of their immediate sight. With any luck they won't see us and run past."

"With _any luck_?"

"Do you have a better idea? Because I'm open for suggestions here!"

Lassiter looked around the area helplessly, but there was no other hiding place in sight. Finally, he rolled his eyes.

"Oh, damn it!"

Lassiter got down to his knees and Shawn followed suit. Crawling underneath the overhang was awkward. There were plants and shrubs in their way, most of them thorny. Shawn was thankful for the shrubbery, it was what would hopefully hide them from sight, but getting through it was not easy. By now Shawn's shoulder was throbbing with every heartbeat and he didn't want to imagine how badly Lassiter with his cracked ribs had to be faring.

There wasn't much room in the small crawlspace underneath the overhang, and it took some endlessly long moments until they had wriggled out of sight. Especially moving their cuffed arms was awkward and difficult.

"Spencer, if we're about to crawl into some animal's burrow, I swear I am going to shoot you." Lassiter whispered.

"I doubt any animal would want to live in a burrow filled with thorns." Shawn replied.

They were hidden entirely beneath the overhang by now, and it was a tight fit. Lassiter's right side was lying pressed up against the rock face and Shawn was squeezed in right beside him, shoulder to shoulder, their cuffed wrists settled between their heads.

"This is idiotic." Lassiter mumbled after a few seconds.

"It's better than running around out there."

Lassiter didn't respond to that, and as Shawn turned his head to the right he found the detective's face drawn in pain and his breathing fast and flat.

"Is it the ribs?"

Realizing that Shawn was watching him, Lassiter tried to force the pain out of his expression. "Lying on them isn't exactly helping."

Shawn thought for a moment, then he moved his body a little towards Lassiter.

"Use my shoulder."

"What?"

Shawn rolled his eyes. "Lean on my shoulder, take at least some of the strain off your ribcage."

"That's got to be the most ridiculous thing of all the ridiculous things I've heard you say today. You want me to take strain off my ribcage by leaning part of my weight onto your recently dislocated shoulder?"

"You keep lying on those ribs, you'll be in pain and will have trouble breathing. If you lean on my shoulder, I'll be in a slight bit of pain but at least you'll be able to breathe. I'd say breathing supercedes a little pain. So cut that macho tough head detective bullshit and lean on my shoulder."

Lassiter grumbled something, but a moment later he started shifting around and Shawn felt Lassiter's shoulder settle atop his own. It pulled a little awkwardly at their handcuffed wrists, and his shoulder started to hurt from the pressure, but it was bearable. Probably a lot more bearably than lying on cracked ribs, judged by the small sigh of relief he heard coming from his right.

"And now we just lie here and hope that they run past us?"

Shawn nodded. "Pretty much, yes."

He peeked out between the plants and bushes growing around the overhang. The plants were somewhat in the way, but he got a pretty good view on their surroundings.

"Just great." Lassiter's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Had I known this morning that by afternoon I'm lying face-down in the dirt, handcuffed to you, hiding from killers, I'd have stayed in bed. Or I'd just have shot you."

"The threat doesn't get any more scary if you constantly repeat it."

"It's not a threat, Spencer."  
Shawn drew breath to respond something to that, but he was interrupted by a cracking sound from outside.

"Shhhh. They're coming."

Shawn narrowed his eyes as he squinted out from between the plants growing around the overhang. The problem with their position was that while he had a good view into the direction they had come from, they could only see a very limited field vertically.

So the first thing Shawn saw was a pair of jeans-clad legs coming into view maybe a hundred yards from where they were. He tried to take in as many details as he could, but there wasn't much to go on if he was just seeing the man's legs and feet.

But this was only one guy. There had to be another around here somewhere, one they couldn't see.

The woods around them seemed eerily silent all of a sudden, and the only sound Shawn was aware of was that of Lassiter breathing close beside him.

Shawn realized that he was holding his own breath as he tried to keep the first guy in sight while at the same time he was looking out for the other guy.

His breath caught in his throat when the second guy suddenly walked into his line of sight. Beside him, Lassiter shifted slightly in surprise, which sent a jolt of pain up Shawn's shoulder. Shawn bit his lip to keep from crying out.

The second guy was just a few feet away from where Shawn and Lassiter were hiding. He was close enough for Shawn to make out the mud spatters on his boots as he walked past. The steps stopped, then the second guy stood for a moment, as if he was looking for something.

When the guy started walking again, he was heading directly towards the overhang where Shawn and Lassiter were hiding.


	4. I appreciate the bonding

Thanks for all the reviews! Here you go with the next chapter.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for a movie called _The Defiant Ones_. Those of you who - like me - also like NCIS might catch the references to the show. There's an NCIS episode with a very similar setting that I've always enjoyed.

I don't own _The Defiant Ones_ either, just like I don't own Psych. But I totally spoil the ending for the movie, so if you want to watch it first, you might want to do that now :D

**Chapter 4 – ****I appreciate Bonding, but I could have done without the cuffs**

Shawn didn't dare to breathe.

The second man's feet were coming directly towards their hiding place. When the boots were only a couple of inches away, they stopped. Shawn's heart was beating so loud in his chest that he thought it was completely impossible that the man in front of them didn't hear it as well. Next to him, Lassiter was tense as a bowstring as both of them only waited for their pursuers to call out that they had been found.

But instead, the guy in front of them suddenly turned around and they could hear him sigh.

"They can't have gotten far."

"All the more reason for us to hurry the hell up." The other man's voice was still farther away. "Get up and keep searching."

And suddenly, Shawn understood. The man was sitting on the outcrop they were hiding beneath. He had only come towards them to sit down for a few moments, and not because he had discovered them. Shawn allowed himself to relax just a slight bit. This could still work out.

"Martin won't be calling for a few hours." The man sitting above them said.

"Yeah, and when he does, we'd better make sure that we've found them."

The man above them sighed. "I don't understand why we need to run after them, anyway. They've got to be pretty banged up after falling down that slope. They won't make it out of these woods, anyway."

There was a loud, frustrated sigh heard from the man across the clearing.

"We're not in Mexico yet. Hell, the stones aren't even in Mexico yet. And we need to make sure that everything goes according to plan. We grab them, bring them back to the hut and wait for the call. Once the stones and the crew are safely across the border, we'll clean up and make sure that they're never found."

"They're going to die out here, anyway Greg."

It was obvious that the guy sitting on the stone had absolutely no desire to be running through the woods. It was a feeling Shawn could relate to, personally.

"We need to make sure Herb, and that's the last I'm going to say about that. So get off that damn rock and start looking for them now. If they get away and this whole thing goes to hell, I know who I am going to hold responsible."

Herb sighed loud and long, then he got up from his perch on the stony outcrop. Shawn watched as he stretched his legs and then started to walk away from their hiding place, over to where Greg was standing.

"So what now? We keep running after them down the mountain? We've lost their trail, they could be anywhere."

"They'll be going downhill. I bet they're trying to find the road again, so that's where we're going. We'll catch them on the road, on their way down, at the latest. But now get moving Herb, you've wasted enough time already."

That seemed to be the end of the conversation, and from his vantage point Shawn could see how the two men continued to climb down the mountain in what they thought was pursuit of Shawn and Lassiter. They were gone from sight quickly, and the sounds they were making became gradually less, until after a few minutes they couldn't be heard anymore.

Only when he was absolutely sure that they were both out of sight and out of earshot did Shawn allow himself to relax a little.

With a sigh he let his forehead drop to the ground. His neck muscles were aching, though he hadn't even noticed that they had been tense.

"For a moment I thought he had made us."

"Tell me about it, Spencer." Lassiter didn't relax, but judged by the look on his face he was simply in too much pain to relax. "Can we get out of here now?"

Getting out from underneath the rock was even more difficult than getting in had been. Moving backwards was far more difficult, all their limbs seemed to be in the way. It took some endless minutes until they had freed themselves from the burrow underneath the overhang. Once they were free of the rock they scrambled back to their feet. Lassiter was extremely pale, there as sweat on his face and he staggered slightly until he had found his balance.

"Carlton?"

Lassiter shook his head. "I'm all right. I only need a moment to catch my breath."

"Sure. We need to figure out what to do, anyway."

"They're expecting us to do exactly what we were trying to. They'll be waiting for us at the road."

Shawn ran his free hand through his hair. "Problem is that we're not going to make it out of here if we don't find the road, so whether or not they're waiting there for us is not really important. At least they don't plan on killing us right away."  
Lassiter rolled his eyes. "Oh yes, that makes me feel so much better."

"Right now we have the great advantage that they think they're still chasing us when in fact we're actually behind them. We don't have to keep looking over our shoulder. And our friends confirmed that going straight downhill is eventually going to take us to the road again."

"I suggest we wait a few moments longer before we continue, just to make sure that there's enough distance between them and us."

Shawn nodded. "Good idea. Especially since we have another problem."

"Jolly. Another problem, now that's a surprise. What is it this time? Is there a mountain lion lurking behind me?"

Shawn shook his head. "No, it's nothing like that. It's…more a problem of a personal nature."

That sentence was rewarded with an eye roll. "Just spit it out Spencer, we don't have all day."

Shawn drew a deep breath. "I've got to…well, go."

Lassiter frowned. "Go? Go where? You can't just go somewhere, we're handcuffed together in case you had forgotten."

"No, not go like leave. I've got to _go_."

"You don't have to go, but you have to _go_? How am I supposed to understand that?"

Shawn sighed. "I gotta pee, Lassie!"

"Oh, in the name of all that's good Spencer, why didn't you just say so. How old are you, three?"

"It's not as if it were that easy."

"Spencer, believe me, it's very easy. I'm fairly sure that you have done it before, and if you focus really hard I'm sure you'll be able to do it on your own just this once."

Shawn sighed. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Lassiter shrugged, and as the movement pulled at their cuffed hands he looked down at the metal linking his left hand to Shawn's right. He stared at the handcuffs for a few seconds, then looked up at Shawn with a long-suffering sigh.

"I'm right-handed." Shawn said with a grin.

Lassiter shook his head. There was this expression on his face again, the one he often had in Shawn's presence. It was an expression demanding an explanation as to what he could have possibly done in his previous life to be settled with Shawn in this one. Shawn had never taken Lassiter for the karmic believer, but whenever the detective got that look on his face, he wasn't quite so sure anymore.

"All right Spencer. Pick a damn tree and get this over with. And if you don't forget that you are right-handed for the next couple of minutes, I will reconsider that Hannibal method of getting out of these cuffs which you mentioned earlier. Do I make myself clear?"

Shawn saw the look in Lassiter's eyes and for once thought it might be better not to disagree. He was pretty attached to both his hands, all things considered, and Lassiter didn't look as if he was joking.

"Perfectly clear." He shuffled over towards the nearest tree, Lassiter unwillingly trailing beside him.

Three very awkward minutes later, Shawn and Lassiter were on their way towards the spot where the two men had vanished further down the mountain, in silent agreement not to mention the past minutes to anybody ever again.

"At least we don't have to run anymore" Shawn said as they continued to climb down the mountain a few hundred yards further east than their pursuers had done to avoid running into them. "How are the ribs?"

"I'll live."

That was all the answer Shawn got out of the detective on that question, even though it was obvious that the pain was getting worse. Shawn considered himself somewhat of an expert on bruised, cracked and broken ribs and he knew how damn painful those injuries could be. But since they didn't have any bandages or medication, Lassiter was right. There was nothing they could do about that now.

"Wasn't there a movie like this?"

Lassiter looked at Shawn as if he had just suggested something indecent. "What?"

"There's a movie, I'm sure. Two guys who are chained to each other running through the woods, trying to escape their pursuers."

"_The Defiant Ones_."

Now it was Shawn's turn to frown, since he hadn't expected Lassiter to partake actively in the discussion. "What?"

"The movie, Spencer. It was called _The Defiant Ones_. And I don't think it's an appropriate comparison for our situation."

"Oh, and why is that?"

Lassiter snorted. "First of all, it were two convicts in that movie. I'm an officer of the law, and quite proud of that in fact. I'm not so sure about you, but after all you do have a criminal record. I'm sure if they ever do a remake of that movie, that might even help you getting a part."

"Wow, was that a joke? A joke out of Carlton Lassiter's mouth? I must be dreaming!"

"Just shut up, Spencer. And just for your information, since I'm fairly sure that you weren't patient enough to watch a piece of classic moviemaking through to the end: they got caught. _The Defiant Ones_ ends with them getting caught. So you might want to stop comparing our situation to that movie."

"I was just trying to make some small talk. You know, lighten the mood. Keep the spirits up."

"Well, try something else Spencer. Like being silent, that should be a new challenge for you."

Shawn was sorely tempted to stick his tongue out at the detective. Talking was an automated reflex in stressful situations, it wasn't as if he had any control over what his mouth was doing. It had gotten him into trouble before, he knew that, but that didn't mean he could control it.

But for the next minute the two men continued to climb down the mountain in silence. There was no sign of Greg and Herb, the two men who were out here to kill them, anywhere, but somehow that wasn't a very comforting thought. They might no longer be behind them, but they were still around somewhere.

The dirt road that should eventually cross their path again was still nowhere in sight. There was nothing in sight but trees and rocks. It was like a hiking trip with his Dad.

"It'll be getting dark in a few hours." Lassiter said after a few minutes.

"I thought we were trying the silent mountain climbing approach."

Lassiter ignored that remark. "We need to be out of here by then. It's going to get pretty cold, and there's no way we're going to be able to move on steep ground when we can't see a damn thing."

Shawn nodded. "Wonderful. Just add a deadline to our mountain of problems, will you? It's not my fault that this stupid road is still nowhere in sight."

"Let's not get into the discussion about who's at fault, Spencer. Believe me that you don't want that. But even if we reach the road, we still have no idea how to get away from the two killers with the truck."

Shawn couldn't even disagree with the detective. "Why don't we worry about that when the time comes. Besides, you heard them. They're not going to kill us immediately."

"Not unless they got the call from their friends by now and don't need us anymore."

Shawn didn't particularly want to entertain that thought. Their possible further need as a bargaining chip was the only leverage they had in case they ran into those two thugs again.

Shawn checked his watch. Half past five.

"Well, I guess it could be worse."

Lassiter stopped, held onto a tree with his free hand and looked at Shawn with an incredulous expression on his face.

"What could possibly be worse than _this_?"

Shawn shrugged and continued walking down the slope. "If we weren't out here, I'd be getting ready for dinner at my Dad's place right now."

Lassiter chuckled mirthlessly. "And having dinner with your father is worse than being chased by killers?"

Shawn shrugged, or at least he tried to until the pain in his right shoulder stopped the movement. "Not always. But most times, it's a lot less fun than this. And since we've already established that being here is absolutely no fun at all, I think you get the message."

They continued down the mountain in silence for a moment.

"How big are the chances that your father is going to call somebody if you don't show up?" Lassiter finally asked.

Shawn laughed. "Of course. At five past six he'll have called in the whole SPBD, the FBI, Homeland Security and the National Guard. Lassie, I hate to rain on your parade, but I think he's only inviting me over for dinner because he _hopes_ that I'll be late or don't show up so that he can chew me out for it later. Chewing me out is like his purpose for living."

"I can't imagine why."

Shawn raised his free hand and pointed his finger at Lassiter. "Just…just stop it, all right? Let's just say that my father certainly won't panic because I miss dinner. I tried to call him about the warehouse lead, but he hung up on me. I left Gus a voicemail about the warehouse, but he's got this big date tonight and has gone incommunicado since yesterday. So I called you, and unless you told anybody where you were going, we're on our own."

Lassiter's face was angry. "You called me on my break, Spencer. In fact, the only reason I came to that warehouse is that you yelled something about this being an emergency, and only because I was in the area anyway. So don't place the blame for this on me, especially not since I was only the third person on your calling list, after two_civilians_. Which is just plain typical of how you're doing things!"

"I thought you were coming with Jules. I mean, what kind of cop is coming to the scene of the crime without backup?"

"The kind who was on a break, Spencer. The kind who doesn't immediately jump whenever you have one of your little visions. Be glad that I came at all, otherwise you'd be in this alone, and _I_ would most certainly not be working overtime to find you."

Shawn stopped. "What is your problem?"

Lassiter, forced to stop along with Shawn, sighed. "What my problem is? Haven't we been over this again and again? We're in the woods, there's killers out there…"

"That's not what I'm talking about. What is your problem with me?"

"Jeez, where do you want me to start?"

Lassiter turned around and started to continue walking, but with a sharp tug on the cuffs Shawn stopped the movement. It was an automatic reaction, one Shawn immediately regretted as a sharp pain shot down his right arm from his shoulder. What was even worse was the undisguised look of pain on Lassiter's face as the detective rubbed his smarting wrist with his free hand. As soon as Lassiter realized that Shawn was watching him, the look of pain was replaced by anger.

"What is your problem, Spencer?"

"Just answer the question, Lassiter. What is your problem with me?"

Lassiter's eyes narrowed. "And I repeat, where do you want me to start?"

"Oh come on, Lassiter! This is not playing the grumpy detective at work because you're pissed that I get the cases solved faster than you. There's no need to start placing the blame on me just because you weren't the first on my call list when I cracked the case you were working on!"

Lassiter's eyes were dark with anger. "No, but this is exactly what is wrong with how you do things! This is not a game, Spencer! I happen to take my job very seriously. I went to the Academy, I spent years learning the rules, learning how to do the job right. And then you come waltzing in, treating this all like a big game in which it's only important to get as much fun as possible out of it! I don't care how you solve the cases anymore, my problem is the way you solve them, all right? My problem is that whenever you start getting involved in a case, whenever you start doing your _thing_, the likelihood of something like this happening increases. If I find a lead to a group of jewel thieves, I call for backup, for Christ's sake!"

"So did I!" Shawn protested.

"You called a retired cop and a pharmaceutical salesman who starts screaming at the mere sight of blood. What would you have done if Guster had answered his phone? Would the two of you have gone into that warehouse together, without any additional backup? Then you and Guster would have ended up cuffed together here in the woods, if you had even made it this far!"

"At least with Gus it would have been fun!"

"You're not a cop Spencer, in case you hadn't noticed!"

Shawn rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to listen to that lecture from you as well. I'm an official consultant for the Santa Barbara Police, it's my job to get involved in cases!"

"It's your job to pretend to get psychic vibes about something, to _consult_ on cases and let the real detectives deal with the actual police work."

Shawn took an angry step towards the detective, so that they were face to face. "Oh yes, because you're doing such a great job of that at times! If you were that good at the _actual police work_ as you say you are, then there'd be no need for me to get involved in the first place, don't you think?"

A vein on Lassiter's forehead started throbbing. "Believe it or not, the Santa Barbara Police Department is perfectly capable of solving crimes without your help. If I had any say in it, you'd never set foot in the building again!"

"Is that so?" They were both yelling now, but Shawn didn't care. "Well, then let me tell you something: You don't have any say, so you can't do a damn thing about whether or not I get involved in cases or not. And you know what? It's actually kind of fun to know that you'd rather not have me involved. It keeps you on your toes, maybe even makes you work just a tiny little bit harder on the cases. No loss there. I've helped solve over thirty cases for the SBPD until now, and in all that time you've been constantly grumpy, you've never taken me seriously, you've tried to discredit and boycott me every step of the way, but you know what? If _you_ had gone missing in the woods somewhere I'd definitely be trying to find you."

Lassiter frowned, stunned speechless for a second. "Is that what this whole thing is about? Because I said I'd not be working overtime to find you if I hadn't gone missing together with you? Spencer, this is ridiculous!"

"It's not about whether or not you'd theoretically be searching for me! It's about the fact that you're still denying that I'm actually helping, that's what…"

Lassiter started moving from one moment to the next, cutting off Shawn's reply. For the fragment of a moment Shawn thought the detective was about to strike him. Then Lassiter's body slammed into him with a grunt, throwing him off balance at the same moment that Shawn heard the report of a gunshot close by.

All that happened within the fragment of one moment. The next moment, gravity took hold of them and Shawn and Lassiter started falling.


	5. How often can you fall down a mountain

**Chapter 5 – How ****often can you fall down a mountain before it gets old?**

This time, the fall didn't last as long as the first time.

The impact of Lassiter's body threw Shawn off balance and he fell backwards down the slope they had been standing on during their argument. A second or two later, his body landed hard on the ground and they slid and tumbled down a little further. But their momentum wasn't that big enough to keep them going, and after a final tumble Shawn came to rest on his back. Lassiter fell on top of him a bare half-second later, the force of the impact pressing the air out of Shawn's lungs.

Not again.

His back was hurting, his shoulder was hurting, his head was hurting, his chest was hurting and he couldn't breathe.

Wheezing, Shawn drew a few shallow, panted breaths into his lungs. If Lassiter didn't get off him soon, he'd start hyperventilating.

But Lassiter didn't move.

Why wasn't Lassiter moving?

The sound of the gunshot was still echoing hollowly in Shawn's ears, and in a spur of panic he opened his eyes.

Somebody had been shooting at them.

And now Lassiter wasn't moving.

The detective was lying face down across Shawn's chest, their cuffed hands squeezed between their bodies in an awkward position.

"Lassie?"

Lassiter's eyes were closed, and the left side of his face was covered in blood. He must have hit his head on something during their most recent fall, but that was not what Shawn was most worried about. The bloody hole in Lassiter's jacket was what sent icy tendrils of panic down his spine.

Lassiter had been shot!

Carefully, Shawn sat up and moved Lassiter's body onto his back on the ground. The bullet must have hit Lassiter from behind, the hole in the back of his shoulder was small, but the exit hole in front of his right shoulder was bigger. It was bleeding, not bad enough for an artery to have been hit, but still. Lassiter was loosing blood, and that wasn't good. Of course it meant that his heart was still beating, and that was a good thing, but the detective needed to be brought to a hospital, and quickly.

Lassiter's jacket was still handing off his body in shreds, and Shawn quickly ripped off a large piece of the fabric. It wasn't as clean as Shawn would have liked, but for now it was most important to get the bleeding under control.

Shawn balled up the fabric in his hand and pressed it firmly against the exit wound beneath Lassiter's collarbone. The detective's face pulled into a pained grimace, but his eyes remained closed.

"Lassie come on. Wake up. Open your eyes."

Shawn could have sworn that Lassiter was keeping his eyes closed just to spite him. It wouldn't surprise him, at least.

Steps were hurrying down the slope behind them, but Shawn paid no attention to them. The time for running away was over, anyway, with Lassiter unconscious there was no way they were going to move away from this spot anytime soon. Not under their own power.

"Get away from him."

Shawn shook his head as he heard Herb's voice behind him.

"I said get away from him!"

"No!" Shawn yelled over his shoulder without turning away from the unconscious detective.

A hand roughly grabbed his shoulder – his injured shoulder – and tried to pull him away, but Shawn struggled against the pressure. He needed to stop Lassiter's bleeding, Herb could go to hell if he wanted to stop that.

Suddenly, something hard connected with the side of his head and bright stars exploded behind his eyelids. Shawn didn't even have the time to wonder what had happened before he lost consciousness and dropped to the ground.

The next thing Shawn became consciously aware of was a blinding pain in his head, threatening to split his skull apart. The voices arguing in the background didn't help matters, either.

Shawn opened his mouth to tell his Dad to stop yelling when he realized that something was off. Something was wrong.

It wasn't his Dad's voice that was yelling, and despite the throb of his own heartbeat in his ears Shawn strained to listen to what the voices were saying.

"…completely and utterly mad? You know the plan, Herb. We're not supposed to kill them until we get the all clear from Martin. Is that so hard to understand?"

"You're taking all this crap too seriously, Greg. Nobody is going to notice whether they die now or in two hours. I've been chasing after them on this damn mountain for hours, what did you want me to do? Let them get away again? I was too far away, I needed to stop them from running."

"So you shoot one and pistol-whip the other? Great plan, Herb. Ingenious, really. Now I know why you were hired as muscle on this job, because quite obviously your brain is not in working order! I tell you what we're going to do now, all right? I'm going to get the car while you sit here and watch them. The road is just a few hundred yards to the south, I should be back in an hour at the latest. We're bringing them into the car and take them back to the hut. Then we wait for Martin to call, we'll take care of the two, and then ditch them, the guns and the car where nobody will find them. All according to plan. When I come back I don't want to hear of any more trouble, understand me?"

"Yeah, whatever." Herb's voice sounded bored.

Three was the sound of quick steps, then a muffled choking sound. "I asked whether you understand me! If I come back to find either of them in worse shape than they're in now, there'll be hell to pay for you. Martin won't stand for us straying from the plan, and if something goes wrong he'll blame the both of us. I won't be cut from my share just because you couldn't restrain yourself for two hours!"

Herb started coughing, as if Greg had loosened his hold on the other man's throat. It was difficult to tell for Shawn, but he couldn't bring himself to open his eyes just yet. His headache was still too blinding.

"Do you understand me?" Greg yelled.

"Yes, I understand. I won't touch them until you come back."

"Good. I'll be back in an hour."

Herb grunted something, then there was the sound of steps hurrying away towards Shawn's left. He dared to breathe a small sigh of relief. Herb's voice had sounded sufficiently subdued to leave the chance that he'd not kill them until Greg came back. Which meant they might have bought themselves an hour.

Now there was only the question whether Lassiter's condition was good enough to give them a chance during that hour. Slowly, Shawn opened first one eye, then the other. The sun was already setting, but even the diminished light hurt his eyes and increased the pounding in his head. He couldn't help the groan that escaped his lips.

Something shuffled through the grass at Shawn's feet and a few seconds later Herb's face came into view. He was a grinning, slightly balding guy of about thirty-five years, his face turgid and marked with acne scars. He was sneering down at Shawn.

"Finally awake, eh? I'm going to teach you a lesson about chasing me down that frigging mountain, I'll tell you. You just wait."

Shawn was breathing heavily through his nose to fight the onslaught of nausea that gripped him. With a huge effort, he managed to turn his head to the right.

Lassiter was lying right next to him, still unconscious, the one side of his face that was not covered in blood ghostly pale.

"Ah, don't worry about your friend here. He's still alive, Greg made sure of that. Not that it matters 'cause you'll both be dead in about two hours, anyway."

Shawn did his best to ignore the man's taunting voice as he tried to assess Lassiter's condition. He couldn't see the shoulder wound too clearly, but it looked as if the bleeding had at least slowed down. The detective was breathing evenly, if a bit flatly, but that could come from the cracked ribs. Shawn only hoped that Lassiter hadn't aggravated the injury in their second fall.

"Lassiter!"

There was no reaction from the prone man, but Herb chuckled as if the display was greatly amusing.

"I don't think he can hear you. He's been out cold ever since the two of you took that tumble down the hillside. Got a bad blow to the noggin' the poor guy. Maybe you should have stayed out of this."

Yeah, that thought had already occurred to Shawn. But it was too late to change that now. The problem was that their window of opportunity was closing fast. For as long as Lassiter was unconscious, they wouldn't get away from here. But they needed to get away before Greg came back. Their chances were far better against only one of their pursuers than against both of them.

Herb had a gun, if they could somehow manage to get to it, they might be able to turn the tables.

But for that, Lassiter needed to be conscious, and it didn't seem as if he would wake up on his own anytime soon.

Herb seemed to loose interest in Shawn when he didn't react to his taunts, and with a huff he retreated back to the rock he had been sitting on earlier. Shawn was watching the head detective intently.

Earlier, when he had pressed the part of his jacket against the bullet wound, Lassiter had reacted. The pain hadn't been bad enough to wake him up, but it was worth a try. Shawn was loathe to cause the man any more pain, but he wouldn't get around that if he wanted him to wake up. If Lassiter didn't wake up, they'd be dead within an hour or two, that should justify what he was about to do. He could always apologize later.

Shawn couldn't reach really far because right now moving meant pain, but he could reach Lassiter's left wrist. Lassiter's swollen, quite obviously badly sprained or even broken left wrist.

Shawn circled Lassiter's arm around the metal of the handcuff with the fingers of his right hand and squeezed.

Something twitched in Lassiter's face and his expression started to change into one of pain. Shawn bit his lip and squeezed harder. After a few endless moments, Lassiter started to groan and turned his head towards the left.

"Come on Lassie, wake up."

Shawn tightened his grip around the detective's injured wrist once more, and with a sharp hiss of pain finally Lassiter's eyelids began to flutter open.

Lassiter groaned, but Shawn only stopped squeezing the injured wrist when Lassiter's eyes were fully open and he was looking at him. It took some more seconds until Lassiter's gaze was starting to focus on Shawn.

"Spencer?" His voice was a lot weaker than Shawn had ever heard it, and it sounded hoarse. "What happened?"

"We fell down a mountain."

Lassiter rolled his eyes. "I know."

"No, we fell down a mountain _again_. After you got shot in the shoulder."

Lassiter frowned as he tried to remember what Shawn was talking about. His eyes widened slightly as he seemed to remember the last seconds before their fall. He tried to bring up his left hand to reach for his shoulder, but stopped the movement with a sharp his of pain.

"He was in the trees behind you, slightly up the mountain. I forgot that we were on a slope when I pushed you."

"Yeah, and got a bullet through your shoulder for your efforts."

"Oh look at that! Sleeping Beauty has decided to wake up and join us."

Lassiter frowned at the unknown voice coming from somewhere behind him.

Shawn raised an eyebrow. "The bad news is that they caught us. Herb's friend Greg is on his way to getting the car right now."

"Herb the shooter?"

Shawn nodded. "Yes. He's a little trigger happy, but his buddy convinced him to leave us alone until he comes back. Isn't that right, Herb?" Shawn called into the direction of their keeper. "If you kill us before that call comes, you can kiss your share of the stolen stones goodbye."

"Shut the fuck up or I'll make sure you'll be unconscious again."

Shawn chuckled, then turned his eyes back on Lassiter.

"Can you walk?" He whispered, low enough so that Herb wouldn't be able to hear.

Lassiter frowned. "Why? He won't let us go."

"We need to get away before his friend comes back. Can you walk?"

Lassiter nodded, but the expression on his face was anything but convincing. "Yes. What's your plan?"

"He has a gun. We need to get to his gun. I need you to play along."

"Play along with what?"

"Hey, what's it with all the whispering? Shut up, both of you!" Herb's annoyed drawl interrupted them from the side.

"Just trust me on this." Shawn whispered to Lassiter.

Lassiter looked as if there was nothing he wanted to do less than blindly follow Shawn into whatever plan he had hatched out right now, but Shawn didn't give him any chance to really consider his response.

"You shut up, Herb!" Shawn yelled back.

Herb got up from the rock he was sitting on and strode over towards them. "What was that?" He hissed.

"Shut up Herb." Shawn quipped with a little too much cheer in his voice. "You know as well as I do that you can't do anything until Greg comes back with the car, so why don't you give us a little peace and quiet until that happens."

Herb's face pulled into a grimace of anger. "You better keep your mouth shut right now or you're going to get on my bad side. I don't care what Greg says, do you hear me? If you keep this up, I'm going to shut your trap permanently!"

Shawn laughed. "Sure you will. Maybe Greg will even be glad if you lose your temper now. After all, dividing 5 million amongst five people is so much easier than dividing it amongst six, don't you think? I'm sure Greg will be glad to be spared the mathematical exhaustion if you're cut off from your share."

"Spencer, stop it."

Shawn shook his head. "No Lassie. Herb here won't harm us. He's too worried about his 833.333 bucks. By the way Herb, you might want to write that number down. That's what your share of 5 million amounts to. I'm just trying to keep you from wracking your brain with all those numbers."

Herb's face was a mask of fury and the tendons on his throat stood out prominently. But that still didn't help Shawn at all. Herb was still too far away, but for what he had in mind Shawn needed him to come closer.

Herb roughly kicked his foot into Shawn's side. "Shut up!"

"We've been through that, _Herbie_. I won't shut up. Why should I? According to you I only have two hours left to live, so why should I care about what you're telling me?"

Herb looked at Shawn for a long moment, his features completely irate, then his malicious gaze turned towards Lassiter.

"All right. You don't want to shut up, do you? Well, we'll see how cocky you are if he gets it for every remark you make. I promised Greg you wouldn't be off worse than when he left. You were both unconscious then, so I think I still have some leeway to work with, right?"

He pulled his foot back and kicked Lassiter in the ribs. He didn't kick the detective on his injured side, but the kick was hard enough to have Lassiter cry out in pain. Lassiter tried to curl in on his right side, and as he did his the handcuff tightened around his injured wrist. Lassiter flinched back, not knowing which of the two pains to try and alleviate first by curling in on himself.

Shawn's anger was rising as he watched the detective writhe in pain. This was not what he had planned. He only needed to get Herb close enough so that he could make a go for the gun in the man's waistband. If he could only get his hands on the gun, then they had a chance to make it out of this alive.

"What are you saying now, ha? You're not so cocky now, aren't you?" Another vicious kick to Lassiter's stomach followed that left the detective retching dryly. "If I hear just another word out of your mouth I'm going to keep kicking him until he's unconscious again. And then I'll wake him up and start all over again. Do you understand that now, or do I need to make myself any clearer?"

Next to Shawn, Lassiter was panting, curled up on his right side despite the pull on his injured wrist. Shawn didn't want Herb to have another go at the detective, but he needed to get the gun. And he couldn't do that while Herb was focused on him.

"So, do we understand each other now? You shut up and your body can enjoy his last living hours conscious."

"He's not my buddy. What do you think I care about whether or not you kick him from here 'till next Tuesday? Come on, I'm left here with the idiot of the whole gang and you're asking me to keep my mouth shut? If you already want to kill me, the least I can do is to go on joking for as long as I can."

Herb's face turned red with rage.

"Shut up!"

Shawn had guessed already that Herb had a short fuse, and judged by the look on the other man's face Shawn had just set that fuse off. His eyes were darkening with rage as he pulled his foot back to take another kick at Lassiter. Shawn knew that it was now or never.

Ignoring the pull of the handcuff on his abraded wrist and injured shoulder, Shawn pulled his knees up beneath his body and lunged at Herb. The other man was slightly off balance because he had just delivered another kick to Lassiter's stomach, but Shawn's impact to his body wasn't as hard as he would have wished, either. The handcuff was holding him too close to Lassiter's body on the ground to give him any real force behind the lunge.

Blindly, Shawn reached for the gun in Herb's waistband. His fingers closed around the butt of the gun and he started to pull it out, but at that moment Herb seemed to realize what Shawn was about to do and grabbed Shawn's wrist. Shawn kept his fingers closed tightly around the gun's grip as Herb tried to wrestle the gun out of Shawn's hand.

The left hand was Shawn's weaker hand, but he couldn't take the gun into his right hand as long as that was cuffed to Lassiter. He held on to the butt of the gun for dear life, trying to get his finger into the trigger guard.

Herb kicked out, his boot connecting painfully with Shawn's injured ankle and he lost his footing. Together, the two men tumbled to the floor. Shawn heard the cry of pain as he landed atop his injured ribcage, but Shawn's thoughts were focused on nothing but the gun in his hand.

"Let go!" Shawn brought out from behind clenched teeth, but Herb only laughed.

"Surely not, asshole!"

He tightened his grip around Shawn's wrist and started to bend the wrist back to make Shawn let go of the gun. Pain was flaring up Shawn's so far uninjured arm, but he refused to let go. Frantically, Shawn struggled and kicked, trying to hit Herb somewhere, anywhere, just so that he would let go of the gun. But his foot connected with nothing but rocks and earth, and Herb was still trying to push Shawn's wrist beyond breaking point.

Desperately, Shawn tried to shift both of them around so that he'd be lying atop of Herb. But he couldn't find enough leverage to even turn them away from Lassiter. Herb was bending Shawn's wrist so that the barrel was pointing away from them now. Away from them, and towards Lassiter. With a manic grin, Herb looked Shawn straight in the exe and Shawn noticed how the other man's finger tried to get into the trigger guard.

"No," Shawn panted.

Herb only grinned.

With a last desperate effort, Shawn brought up his right hand as far as he could. His fingers closed around his own wrist, and with a sharp tug he tried to pull the barrel of the gun away from Lassiter again. Herb chose that moment to shift the two of them around and Shawn felt something – his own hand? Herb's hand? – pull at his left hand. He didn't move his finger, but his hand moved while the gun remained steady, and all of a sudden the weapon in his hand jerked with the report of the shot.

It felt like a blow to the stomach, but Shawn couldn't even tell whether the shot had hit him or not.

But above him, Herb was still staring down at him with rage in his eyes.

Shawn felt something warm drip over his hands in a steady flow, but for the life of him he couldn't have said whose blood it was.

Suddenly, Herb's grip around his wrist loosened and the man fell atop of him with a loud groan.

Shawn still felt the blood running along his hands in a steady flow, and though he couldn't even see it, suddenly it felt as if he couldn't move fast enough.

Herb's weight on top of him was crushing him. For one too many time in one single day he felt that he couldn't breathe properly, and he frantically started to wriggle beneath Herb's body. He finally managed to push the other man off him, and as Herb dropped to the side, Shawn saw the gaping hole in his gut. His hands were red with blood and other things he didn't even want to think about. His breathing was fast and flat, but still he felt as if there wasn't enough air in his lungs.

"God…oh God, oh God…"

"Spencer, calm down."

Lassiter's voice sounded muffled and pained, but Shawn barely heard the detective. He scrambled off him, away from him as far as he could with the handcuffs still binding them. The gun dropped to the ground unnoticed, its barrel and handle slippery with blood. Shawn didn't care, his awareness consisted solely of the feeling of blood on his hands and the bile rising in his throat as he dropped to the ground on all fours and retched up the contents of his stomach.

He had shot Herb.

He had killed a man.

He had pulled the trigger and had blown a hole into his intestines.

He had killed Herb, and his blood was all over him now.

Even when there was nothing left in his stomach to vomit up, he continued to retch, his throat constricting and sobs shaking his body.

"Spencer, you have to calm down!"

Lassiter's voice was closer now, directly beside his ear, and Shawn looked up to find the detective kneeling beside him. Lassiter's face was extremely pale and the lines of pain were clearly etched into his features, but there was an a sense of urgency in his words and eyes.

Panting, Shawn looked up.

"I…God, I shot…I killed him."

"Spencer, it was an accident. He would have killed us if he'd had the chance."

"I killed him…I killed somebody…I didn't want to, it just happened, I don't know what happened. Suddenly the gun went off. God, I killed him."

"Spencer!" Lassiter's voice was sharp. "You need to calm down. You're that close to hyperventilating! What happened was an accident, and we can't change it anymore. I need you to pull yourself together now. We need to get away from here before this guy's friend comes back. Are you up for that?"

Shawn shook his head, then he nodded, then shook his head again. He found it hard to settle on something. It was impossible to focus on anything with Herb's body lying just three feet away from him, blood still running out of the exit wound in his back. It was so hard to focus on anything with the man's blood on his hands.

Lassiter put his free hand on Shawn's chin and turned his face away from the dead man's body.

"We need to leave, Spencer. Now!"

Shawn nodded numbly, but he didn't move until Lassiter struggled to get to his feet again. Shawn shakily scrambled to his feet beside the detective. Lassiter was panting as if he had been the one to struggle against Herb for the gun and his face was a grimace of pain. The wound on his shoulder was bleeding again, and strangely the sight of the detective's wound helped Shawn get at least a little of his grip on reality back.

"Your shoulder…you're bleeding."

"We need to get moving, Spencer."

He bent down and started to pat Herb's pockets. With a sigh of relief he pulled something out of the right pants pocket and showed it to Shawn.

"Cell phone. We need to call for help as soon as we've put a little distance between us and this here. Did they say which direction the road was?"

Shawn was standing there with his eyes closed, breathing heavily through his mouth. He had heard Lassiter's question, but found himself unable to answer.

"Spencer!" Slowly, Shawn looked up.

"Yeah?"

"The road? Which way?"

Shawn thought for a moment. "South. He said south."

Lassiter nodded and started to lead them away from the place where Herb's body was lying. Shawn stumbled along blindly, not paying attention to where they were going, not caring for how long they were walking. The sun was going down and it got darker, but Shawn didn't care. It didn't matter. He had just killed a man, that wouldn't go away from running.

He nearly kept on running when Lassiter stopped, and only the sharp tug on the handcuffs stopped him. He blinked a few times, and with some surprise saw the dirt road in front of them.

"We're here." Lassiter's voice was strained.

Shawn nodded. Obviously, they were. And he had absolutely no idea what they were supposed to do now. He was spared the decision making when Lassiter suddenly reached for his uninjured arm and started to pull him behind some bushes on the side of the road.

"What…?"

"Shhh. Don't you hear that?"

Shawn strained his ears. He heard the sound of his heart beating furiously, Lassiter's ragged breathing beside him, the birds chirping in the trees, and in the distance the unmistakable sound of a car.

"That could be Greg. The other one."

Shawn hadn't even thought about the words before they left his mouth. Shawn wanted to slap his head in frustration. It was so hard to think all of a sudden.

"We need to be quiet. He's not going to suspect us here. We're going to wait until he's gone into the woods, all right?"

Shawn didn't answer as the truck's engine sound got closer.

"Spencer, do you understand me? We are going to wait until he's out of sight."

Shawn nodded, even though he wasn't quite sure that he was making sense of the words Lassiter was saying.

They waited with bated breath as the engine sounds got closer and closer. Finally, after some endless minutes, the truck rounded a corner and its headlights came into sight. Shawn and Lassiter ducked down before the light swept over the bushes they were hiding behind, and as they came up again Shawn for the first time noticed the large stone that somebody had put on the road.

Greg definitely wasn't stupid, he had marked the place where he needed to stop the car so that he'd recognize it when he came back. The truck stopped, its wheels spitting gravel everywhere, then the driver side door opened and a man got out. It was too dark to see by now and the cabin light didn't go on as the door opened, but Shawn knew that it could only be Greg.

The car door slammed shut again and Greg's steps sounded on the gravel. A few moments later he left the road and his steps could no longer be heard.

Shawn wanted to get up and run. He wanted nothing more than to run into that car, hope that the keys had been left in the ignition and get the hell out of here. Far away from the place where Herb…where he had killed a man.

Merely thinking about it brought back the feeling of the gun discharging, or warm blood running down his hands and filling the air with its disgusting coppery smell.

Shawn couldn't help it.

He started retching again, violently.

"Spencer!" Lassiter hissed beside him, but it was too late. Just a few meters behind them, something cracked in the underbrush.

"Is anybody there?"

It was Greg's voice.

Suddenly, Shawn felt Lassiter's hand on his arm, pulling him up, and before he knew what was happening they were running towards the truck, Greg's shouts sounding obscenely loud behind them.

A shot tore through the distance and Shawn felt the gravel explode to his left as the bullet missed in the darkness. Then they were at the truck and Lassiter pulled open the driver side door.

"Get in Spencer!"

Lassiter climbed in first and Shawn was shocked at the mere suggestion that he should drive a car. He couldn't even think straight, how was he supposed to drive?

Another shot echoed out and Shawn quickly pulled the door closed behind him.

He had to drive. Their hands were still cuffed, Lassiter couldn't drive with Shawn cuffed to his left.

Automatically, Shawn's hand reached for the key, only mildly surprised to find it in the ignition. Who would lock their car in the middle of nowhere?

Just as he pulled the key and he truck roared to life, the back window exploded into a myriad of shards.

"Damn it Spencer, just go! Get the damn car moving!"

Both men were crouching as low in their seats as possible and Shawn hit the accelerator. The car lurched forward, its powerful engine accelerating rapidly, leaving Greg behind them with the gun still trained on their car. Another shot rang out, missing, then another which hit something metallic.

Shawn was driving straight ahead, not really knowing where he was going.

"For the sake of justice Spencer, hit the lights!"

Lights.

That was a good idea.

Shawn fumbled on the dashboard until he found the switch and hit the truck's lights.

The road in front of them suddenly became visible, and it was bending straight to the left.

"Left Spencer!"

Lassiter's voice was lost amongst Shawn's own yell as he pulled the steering wheel around with all his might. The car fishtailed on the gravel, carrying them dangerously close to the edge of the road, until Shawn remembered that his foot was still on the accelerator and he took it off. Their slide slowed and as he had the front wheels back under control he slowly put his foot on the accelerator again and brought them back to the middle of the road.

There was another left turn ahead and this time Shawn took it slower, making sure they got around without sliding close to the abyss again. With two bends of the road between them and the gun wielding maniac, Shawn allowed himself to breathe again.

Beside him, Lassiter sank back into his seat with a groan. "You hurt, Spencer?"

Shawn shook his head, not daring to take his eyes off the road and not daring to speak, either. He didn't know what was still holding him together, what was still making him able to function, let alone drive a car down a mountain road, but he didn't want to jeopardize it by speaking.

Beside him, he saw Lassiter fumble around with something from the corner of his eye. The cell phone.

"Damn."

"What?"

One syllable words worked, but that was all he could bring out now. His throat felt raw, he had a disgusting taste in his mouth and he was worried that if he kept his mouth open for too long, he'd only start retching again. Instead he focused on breathing in sharp, short bursts through his nose. And he stared fixedly at the road ahead, trying to block out the view of his hands holding the steering wheel, which were still red with blood.

"No reception. How were they planning on getting a call from that Martin fellow if they have no reception up here?"

"Sat phone."

If he spoke quickly, two syllables nearly counted as one. And they served to convey the message that Greg as well as his buddies on their way to Mexico had to be using a satellite phone.

"Damn." Lassiter repeated. "We'll have to keep going towards the freeway and wait until we get a signal. Are you fit to keep driving?"

The answer was no. Shawn was not fit to keep driving. He wasn't fit to operate any kind of machinery right now. In fact, he was barely fit enough to keep breathing without vomiting. But Lassiter was in even worse shape. Lassiter was shot, and without his arm he couldn't drive.

Shawn didn't even know whether his own shoulder still hurt. Probably it did, but he was running high on adrenaline and didn't feel any pain. He only felt numb. And maybe that was good, because numb meant he didn't feel like vomiting.

If he only focused on the road ahead, he could make it. Maybe.

"Spencer, are you fit to keep driving?"

"More than you."

That was already three syllables. Shawn was impressed by his own achievement. Lassiter seemed to accept that answer, and for the next minutes the only sound in the car was that of the engine and that of the air blowing through the shattered back window.

Shawn didn't know how much time passed until the gravel road gradually evened out. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours.

But when the headlights fell onto a road sign directing them towards the freeway, he could have cried in relief.

Still not daring to take his eyes off the road, Shawn spoke out of the corner of his mouth.

"Try the phone."

Lassiter grunted sluggishly, as if Shawn's words had pulled him back from the brink of unconsciousness. A moment later the tiny display of the phone lit up.

"Two bars, that should be enough."

He hit a button and pushed the send button, then he cursed loudly.

"What?" Shawn forced himself to ask.

"Not my phone. Can't use the speed dial. Damn, I know O'Hara's number. I know the Chief's number. I just…can't remember. Spencer?"

Shawn was sorely tempted to close his eyes, but he needed to keep them on the road. He strained his brain until he came up with the digits. "718-555-1768"

Lassiter clumsily entered the numbers with his right hand while trying not to move his left hand too much.

"Whose number is that? It's not O'Hara's or the Chief's."

"I don't know."

"You don't know? What do you mean you don't know?"

"It's…it's a number, all right? I know the number, it's someone who can help us! I just…I just don't know whose it is. It's all so jumbled in my head."

Lassiter pressed the speaker button on the phone and they listened as it rang. The phone was picked up after two rings.

"_Hello?_"

Shawn wanted to cry as he heard his father's voice through the tiny speaker.

"Dad…"

"_Shawn? Where the hell are you? You promised to come by for dinner. I've been waiting for over an hour…_"

"Dad, I killed him."

Shawn didn't know where those words had come from, but they had forced their way out before conscious thought had set in. There was a moment of silence in the line.

"_Shawn, what's going on_?" His father's voice sounded different now, less angry. "_What do you mean, you killed him? Where are you? What's going on_?"

It were far too many questions, Shawn had already forgotten half of them.

"He shot Lassiter and I killed him."

"_Shawn, where are you_?"

"In a car. A truck."

"_Where's Lassiter_?"

"I'm here." Lassiter brought out in an exhausted voice. "Henry, call the Chief, give her this number. Have her trace the phone. We're somewhere on the highway heading towards Santa Barbara. Either the…the 150 or the…I don't know. It's the 33 I think. Just call the Chief, Henry. Tell her to send somebody here. An ambulance. Two."

There was a long moment of silence on the line, interrupted only by background sounds and muffled talking. An endless eternity later, Henry's voice sounded through the cabin of the truck again.

"_Karen is on it. How badly are the two of you hurt_?"

"Your son is roughed up bad." Lassiter rasped out. "Probably concussed. Definitely in shock."

"_What about you_?"

"Shot in the shoulder, through and through. Broken ribs. I'll live. But we need an ambulance soon."

"_As soon as she's got your position. Hold on…_"

Henry's voice fell silent and again was replaced by muffled talking in the background.

"_Karen says the techs have got a fix on your signal. Pull over, she'll send the nearest police units and ambulances over._"

"Spencer, pull over."

It took Shawn a long moment to tear himself out of his stupor of driving straight ahead. Slowly, not daring to make any abrupt movements, Shawn pulled the car over into the emergency lane and killed the engine.

The sudden silence was deafening.

Shawn shakily leaned back in the driver's seat and clasped his hands over his face in exhaustion. He drew a deep breath, and immediately the coppery stench of the blood on his hands filled his nostrils.

With a cry of disgust, Shawn pulled his hands away, breathing hard and fast as he started gagging and retching.

"Damn." Lassiter mumbled as Shawn leaned forward and vomited onto the floor mat between his legs.

"_What's going on? Carlton, what's happening_?"

Lassiter turned towards Shawn. "Breathe, Spencer. Relax, then it'll stop."

"_Carlton, what the hell is going on? What's wrong with Shawn_?"

"He's puking, Henry, even though he shouldn't have anything left to bring up. Where's that damn ambulance?"

Shawn continued to retch dryly as his father checked up on the status of the ambulance. He heard Lassiter talk, and he heard his father's voice say things and shout things and demand to know things, but the words eluded him. He stared ahead numbly, the taste of bile still in his mouth, breathing in sharp, short bursts and trying to block out everything around himself.

He didn't even look up as the red and blue lights of the ambulance started flashing on the highway behind them.


	6. Aftershock

Thank you all so much for the great reviews. This one is going to be a bit shorter and more introspective. But the next chapter should clear up the questions this chapter might leave, since the next chapter is from a different (more rational) perspective. Hope you enjoy.

**Chapter 6 –**** Aftershock**

Red. Blue. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. Red. Blue.

The flashing lights were kind of soothing as they approached their truck. It was a well-known sight, a comforting sight. It meant that help was on its way.

It meant that outside of his head, the world was still spinning on its axis. Things were still going their normal way.

Ambulances still arrived when somebody called them.

He had killed somebody.

Somebody was dead because of him.

But the world was still turning.

Not for him, of course, but for everybody else.

Only when the flashing red and blue lights came closer did Shawn notice that it was actually two sets of lights. An ambulance and a patrol car.

If they had their sirens on, Shawn didn't hear.

If Lassiter was still talking to him, if his Dad was still yelling through the phone, Shawn didn't hear.

He only saw the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles and he felt the gentle pressure of a hand on his shoulder. That was all.

And suddenly, a car door slammed and it was as if his ear drums popped and he could hear again. A bit like your ears popped when a plane went into descent, or maybe how it felt when you took out your earplugs at a rock concert.

He wondered if Gus had bought those tickets for _The Who_ by now.

Suddenly, there were far too many sounds for him to make sense of.

Voices. Static. Engines. Wind. Car doors. More voices. Somebody was calling his name, he heard that, his brain distantly registered it, but he couldn't possibly react to it.

A gust of wind brushed against him from the left, but that wasn't possible. The car door was to his left, there couldn't be any wind. Greg hadn't shot through the driver side window. He had shot the back window, Shawn was sure of that.

Maybe Greg was back. Maybe Greg was like that bad guy in _Terminator 2_, who could easily keep up with a car. Maybe Greg had been running behind them all the time and they just hadn't noticed because they had been looking at the street ahead. And if Greg was back now, he'd take his revenge for what Shawn had done to Herb.

But that couldn't be. People couldn't run and keep up with cars.

Could they?

But the guy in _Terminator_ hadn't been people, he had been a machine-thing. He could have run alongside the car.

He was cold all of a sudden. Shawn blinked, then blinked again, blinked until his eyelids hurt to get the world back into focus. But all he could see was blackness ahead, with small bright lights sparkling merrily as if they couldn't be bothered less by the fact that tonight, there was one less living person on this planet, and it was Shawn's fault.

Why was he looking at the sky?

He had been driving a car; he had been looking at the road for the entire time.

Had he crashed the car?

But he had stopped it, he was sure of that.

Or maybe the crash had stopped it.

A face suddenly pushed itself into his line of vision.

It was blurry, but Shawn could see pale skin and dark hair.

Lassiter.

Lassiter had been with him, he should know what was going on.

Lassiter didn't like him, but he would not lie to him. He would tell him what was going on, whether or not he had crashed the car, whether or not Greg was a Terminator who had run alongside their desperate flight down the mountain, whether or not it all had been a bad dream and his hands were not covered in blood.

Lassiter would not lie to him.

But as he blinked the face into focus, the nose was too small, the hair was too long and the eyes were the wrong color. The face was too young, too.

It wasn't Lassiter.

It wasn't Greg either, so maybe he wasn't a man-machine who could keep up with driving cars after all.

The lips in the unknown face started moving, but Shawn couldn't make out the words. Not all of them.

"…all right…hospital…okay…"

And then he was moving.

But only he wasn't. He wasn't walking, wasn't moving his feet, couldn't have possibly lifted a finger right now even if his life had depended on it. But he was moving.

He was floating, though he had no idea how.

Maybe he had crashed the car after all and now he was dying. But where was the bright light that dead people were supposed to go into?

Suddenly the starry sky above him was gone and he was looking at a white ceiling. A strange ceiling, metallic. And it was bright.

The face was back above him, lips working in a silent jumble of words which Shawn couldn't understand.

Maybe Lassiter would be able to tell him what this was all about. Lassiter had to be around somewhere; it wasn't as if the detective could go anywhere. They were cuffed together, and for the first time in this horribly hellish day Shawn was glad for the fact. He had no idea what was happening to him, but Lassiter had to be here, too, and the detective would not let anything else happen to them. He always had a good handle on situations, that Lassie.

It had never before taken so much effort to move. Moving was natural, wasn't it? Brain sends message, muscles obey their orders.

But obviously it wasn't that easy. Brain sends message but nobody answers. Nobody home, please leave a message after the beep.

Finally, his head moved. To his right, because that's where Lassiter was.

Only that he wasn't.

Shawn's heart started beating fast in his chest.

Lassiter wasn't beside him.

Lassiter was gone and that couldn't be because they were cuffed together and Lassiter hadn't wanted them to chop off their hands so that they would be free of the cuffs.

Had somebody chopped off their hands?

But it didn't hurt anywhere.

And as Shawn looked, his hand was still there, attached to his wrist right where it should be. And his wrist was red and raw and swollen, but the cuffs were nowhere in sight.

Where was Lassiter?

Somewhere, something started beeping, but Shawn couldn't care less. He needed to know where Lassiter was, needed to know what had happened to the other man and whether or not somebody had chopped off Lassiter's hand and he was now lying bleeding in a ditch somewhere while those people who weren't Greg but who were maybe working with Greg were taking Shawn away.

Shawn needed to get out of here.

But he couldn't move.

He couldn't move, and this time it had nothing to do with his muscles not following his brain's command. His arms and legs were moving all right, but he couldn't move his hands or legs more than a few centimeters.

Voices started to raise in a hectic cacophony, saying rapid things he couldn't understand.

But none of the voice was Lassiter's.

Shawn had never needed to hear Lassiter's voice so badly.

The other face, the face that wasn't Lassiter's, came back into focus. Again the lips were moving, there were hands on him, but it didn't make sense.

Nothing made sense.

Nothing had made sense since he had felt that gun jerk in his hand and Herb's blood had started to flow over his hands.

Something was pressed over his face and Shawn realized that he was barely breathing. He was drawing breath into his lungs all right, rapidly so, but it felt as if none of the air made it all the way down his windpipe.

The thing above his nose and mouth felt restricting, but he couldn't move. He couldn't bring up a hand to push it away, and after a moment he closed his eyes. He screwed his eyes shut and tried not to think about anything.

Closing his eyes always helped with getting his mind in order. His Dad had taught him that.

If he only closed his eyes, nothing had happened.

He hadn't killed a man.

Lassiter was still there.

The world was still turning.

The frantic pumping in his chest lessened gradually.

Nothing had happened, he only needed to keep telling himself that.

He just lay there and forced himself not to think.

After an eternity, suddenly one of the indiscernible sounds in the background that was the outside world stopped and Shawn's ears perked up.

Then there was a muffled slam.

The muffled sound of a sound that should have been much louder, like when he had pulled the trigger and the gun had jerked and Herb had started bleeding.

Shawn's eyes snapped open.

He was moving again. Floating, or whatever it was that he had done before. Moving along without moving his legs. There were lights above him now, lights that were floating by but that were much bigger and closer than the stars earlier had been.

And the voices were back. All of them, but Lassiter's voice was nowhere amongst them.

Shawn struggled to get free.

In the distance, he heard his Dad's voice yell loudly, drowning out all other sounds. But his father was on the phone, he wasn't here, he didn't know what had happened to Lassiter and why he wasn't here with Shawn.

Shawn would have loved to see his Dad right then and there. He wanted nothing more than to see his Dad's face, because if his Dad was there than it meant that whatever was happening now was all right. But his father wasn't there, he was on the phone yelling at Shawn for missing dinner, and by now Shawn could no longer hear his voice so that meant somebody had hung up the phone.

Probably his Dad had hung up, fed up once and for all with Shawn not keeping his promises of dropping by.

Lassiter was gone and his Dad was gone, those people around him had taken Shawn away from them. He had nothing to hold himself onto anymore, nothing to keep him grounded in reality, nothing but the knowledge that he had killed a man and could never make that undone.

Shawn wanted to cry, but he had forgotten how.

Defeated, he cried a choked sob that was muffled by that thing over his mouth and nose, and let go of his hold on consciousness.


	7. Here's what happened

This is the second part of the previous chapter. Actually it was meant to be one long chapter, but with the shift in perspective I decided to split it in two. So basically, this is the same thing that happened in the previous chapter from a different perspective. Enjoy.

**Chapter 7 – Here's what happened**

Carlton Lassiter had never been so glad to see the flashing lights of an approaching ambulance. Never in his entire life.

Spencer's latest bout of retching was over, but now he was simply staring ahead with glazed eyes and without focus, and that was even more worrisome. Catatonia, shock, Lassiter didn't know what it was. But it was bad.

Actually, he was surprised that the other man had made it this far.

Being chased down a mountain in handcuffs was one thing. Lassiter didn't quite know how Spencer could have seen it as entertaining in any way, but for somebody with a mind as childish as the psychic's it might have been like playing a strangely warped version of _Cops and Robbers_.

Until that shot had made it real.

Nothing like a lethal shot to make things so unbelievably real.

Shooting people was not what TV made you believe it was. Seeing the life vanish out of somebody's eyes when you pulled the trigger was haunting. Devastating. No matter if that person had earned it. Not matter if it had been either you or them. No matter if it was totally, legally justified.

Killing somebody took it out of the strongest.

Lassiter understood the retching. Throwing up because a dead man, a man you had just shot yourself, was lying on top of you was a perfectly normal reaction.

Walking around with the man's blood all over you had to be a nightmare.

But still Spencer had managed to get in the car and drive them down the mountain without killing them. Well, it had been a close call that one time, but he had managed to get them out.

But now Spencer's adrenaline levels seemed to be lowering and it was obvious that whatever had kept the younger man going was gone. Spencer seemed to have shrunk in on himself, and it was obvious that he was going into shock. Not the medical kind of shock, Spencer's injuries weren't bad enough for that.

But his brain seemed to be shutting down now. Maximum capacity reached, sensory overload.

The ambulance was approaching them, and Lassiter could see a second set of flashing lights from a patrol car. Just a minute longer, then help would be here.

The older Spencer was still talking on the phone, was yelling at them to answer, but right now Lassiter couldn't. It was hard enough to think coherently, how was he supposed to answer somebody's questions? Especially the questions of somebody who hadn't been there during the past hours, who knew nothing of what had been going on.

Lassiter's right shoulder throbbed, his ribs were aching fiercely now and he didn't dare to move his left hand at all. But with Spencer shutting down like that, somebody had to stay aware long enough to make sure that those guys didn't get away.

Carefully, Lassiter shifted his body so that he could reach out to Spencer with his right hand. The shoulder hurt like hell, but he managed to bring a hand up and press it against the psychic's jugular. Spencer's pulse was throbbing much too fast under Lassiter's fingers, his breathing was too flat and fast, but Lassiter didn't know what to do. He couldn't do anything but let his hand sink to Spencer's uninjured shoulder with a sigh and wait for the ambulance to arrive.

Spencer senior was still yelling.

Couldn't he stop the yelling? It was not as if that would change anything, and Lassiter was sure that his son was too far gone into shock to hear him, anyway.

"Henry." He finally croaked out, wondering why it required nearly superhuman strength to speak.

"_Carlton, damn it why didn't you answer? What is wrong with Shawn, why isn't he answering?_"

"He's in shock. Listen, I need to speak to the Chief. Where are you?"

"_I'm on my way to the station, where else would I be? Do you seriously think I'd stay at home when my son calls me to tell me that he killed somebody? I'm not going to wait until somebody drops by with the answers!_"

Carlton nodded. That was the first good piece of news in a long time.

"Listen Henry. Stay on the phone. Give it to the Chief. I need to speak to her."

"_What about Shawn?_"

"Ambulance just arrived. He'll be okay. Chief will know which hospital. Just give her the damn phone."

The line went silent, though Lassiter knew that Henry was still listening, trying to discern by the background sounds alone what was happening to his son. Lassiter didn't care right now, he had other things on his mind.

At that moment, two paramedics and two patrol officers arrived, and Lassiter squeezed Spencer's shoulder.

"Spencer. Spencer!"

There was no reaction from the younger man, and Lassiter sank back with a sigh.

The driver side door was opened and one of the patrol officers stuck his head into the car. Lassiter caught the man's eye.

"Carlton Lassiter, SBPD. We…"

The officer shook his head. "We were briefed on the radio, detective. Another ambulance is on the way, now we need to get you out of here."

His eyes fell on the handcuffs that were holding Spencer and Lassiter together and he frowned. "Although nobody mentioned _that_."

He withdrew his head, exchanged a few words with one of the paramedics. The officer handed something over to the paramedic who was next to stick his upper body into the car. His eyes roamed over Spencer's unresponsive form and then turned towards Lassiter.

"All right, we need to get those cuffs off before we try to get the two of you out of here." He inspected Spencer's wrist first, but was done after a few seconds. Then his eyes fell on Lassiter's wrist, which by now was swollen so much that the metal of the cuffs was biting into his arm. "And that's going to hurt."

Lassiter nodded. He probably wouldn't feel the pain anymore. Certainly there had to be a maximum level of pain above which the body simply shut down its pain receptors. If so, he had certainly reached his limit.

The paramedic put the key into the lock of the handcuff and unlocked it.

The click Lassiter heard as the lock disengaged and the cuffs opened was probably the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

The pain that followed as the cuff was gently, carefully removed from his wrist was blinding.

And then it all happened really fast.

The second ambulance arrived together with two more patrol cars. The first two paramedics processed to move Spencer out of the car, including all the usual behavior Lassiter had witnessed at scenes of accidents countless times before. Not that they had even had an accident. At least not with the car. One could call their entire day a string of stupid accidents, but the car ride had been one thing that had gone smoothly. Rather smoothly. Not perfect, but still.

Spencer was still staring ahead without focus and didn't seem to be entirely there. At times, he would blink and draw in a sharp breath, just as if he was about to snap out of it and ask a question, or crack one of his stupid jokes, but that would vanish as quickly as it had come and he'd settle back into his catatonic stare. He didn't even blink as the paramedics started to move him out of the car.

The passenger side door of the car was opened and more paramedics and patrol officers started to work on Lassiter. He too had to undergo the usual procedure of how to get an injured man out of a car, and the paramedics wouldn't be deterred from that no matter how often he told them that he was fine. Finally, he was lifted out of the truck's cabin. For the first time in what felt like an eternity he found himself more than two feet away from Spencer, and somehow that experience was a little disconcerting. On any ordinary day, he'd proclaim that no place on earth could be far away enough from the annoying alleged psychic, but right now it was extremely disturbing that he couldn't see the younger man anymore.

Spencer's condition was worrisome, and he would most certainly not explain to the man's father how it was possible that his son had ended up like this on Lassiter's watch. And he most certainly wouldn't want to face O'Hara on that matter, either.

But as soon as he was strapped on a gurney and his most obvious wounds were being taken care of, the gurney was rolled around the truck and he could see Spencer again.

The psychic was strapped onto a gurney just like Lassiter was, and he was still staring straight ahead, not even aware of the people fussing around him.

Something pulled at his hand and Lassiter noticed that he was still clutching the dead man's cell phone in an iron grip. And now a paramedic was trying to take it away from him.

"Need…phone."

The paramedic nodded. "Of course, but we need to examine you. You can call somebody later. Or we'll call them for you."

Lassiter shook his head and tried to scowl at the young woman who quite obviously didn't realize how important all this was.

"No. I need the phone. Need to tell the Chief."

The paramedic looked as if she was ready and willing to drug Lassiter senseless just to take the phone away from him, but at that moment, fortunately, blissfully, the little device sprang into life again. Spencer senior had arrived at the station, it seemed.

"_Carlton? Carlton, are you still there_?"

It was the Chief's voice, and she sounded rattled.

"Need the phone." Lassiter pressed out, knowing fully well that he'd not be able to raise his hand to his ear on his own. "Important police work."

The paramedic stared down at Lassiter for a moment, deliberating, then she sighed and took the phone out of his hand and held it beside his ear.

"One minute." She said strictly, but Lassiter didn't hear.

"Chief." He croaked out.

"_Carlton, what in the name of all that's good is going on?_"

Her voice was sounding through the earpiece with a strange echo, and Lassiter knew that Vick had him on speakerphone. Probably half the station was listening in. "Ambulance's here. Need you to…listen Karen. The guys, the jewel thieves."

"_That's what this is all about?_"

"Just listen. They're trying to flee. Mexico. Border Patrol needs to close the border. Four guys, two cars. Brown panel station wagon, blue SUV, both…Santa Barbara license plates. Guys are Caucasian, all around thirty years. The guys in the brown car have the diamonds."

"_All right Carlton, I'll pass it on. But now I want you to tell me what has been…_"

"Not finished yet Karen." It was getting harder and harder to think coherently. He needed to tell the Chief everything he knew before he passed out or before the paramedics helped that process along.

"There's a gravel road a few miles…a few miles away from where we're now. Leads into the mountains. You need to send O'Hara and backup teams. There should be glass on the road from our back window. You need to go into the woods there…north. A few hundred yards north there's a crime scene. Coroner needs to get the body."

"_So what Henry said is true? Somebody was killed? Carlton, what happened?_"

Lassiter ignored her. "Second guy is still on the run. He's on foot. He's armed. You need to find him, Karen. He's armed. Dangerous. And you need to get that body to the…the morgue."

"_Carlton, answer me! What happened? Who is the dead man?_"

"Backup crew. Wanted to kill us."

"_And how did he end up dead?_"

"Spencer…Spencer shot him."

Chief Vick fell silent, but Lassiter could clearly hear the loud curse in the background which told him that the older Spencer was still there and had heard that last sentence. Before the Chief could think of something to say, the female paramedic was back and took the phone away from Lassiter.

"No…"

She shook her head. "No discussion. We need to get you to the hospital now." She brought the phone up to her ear. "Hello? No ma'am, he's stable so far. But we need to get him to the hospital quickly, so I'm afraid you'll have to end this conversation now. Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, yes. Everything else you want to know, you'll have to wait until we're there. No…I understand that it might be important, but I'm afraid neither of the two is in the condition to answer any more questions. Goodbye Ma'am."

She hung up and put the phone away. "Now we're going to get you to the hospital, sir."

Lassiter looked around, confused to notice that the other ambulance seemed to have left already.

"Spencer?"

The paramedic raised an eyebrow as she and her colleague rolled the gurney towards the ambulance.

"Your friend is on his way to the hospital. His condition wasn't critical, I'm sure he'll be all right."

But Lassiter had seen the empty look in Spencer's eyes. He didn't know if the man would be all right again. At least not by Spencer's own standards.

Taking a life tended to screw with your ability to bounce back to normal.

It didn't matter how justified it was to pull the trigger.

He was jostled around a little as the paramedics loaded the gurney into the back of the ambulance, and the pain from his shoulder wound flared up with renewed force. Finally, the gurney was in place, the doors were slammed shut and the ambulance started moving.

Lassiter knew that the drive to the hospital would take some time, even if the driver of the ambulance didn't have to stick to the speed limit. His shoulder was throbbing, his wrist was throbbing, his ribs were hurting with every breath he took, his head was aching as if somebody had used it for an anvil, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep.

But just as he wanted to close his eyes, the paramedic shone a light right into his pupil. Lassiter hissed and tried to move away, but he couldn't move.

"Now, I'm afraid you'll have to stay awake a little longer sir. You seem to have a concussion, if possible you need to stay awake."

Lassiter groaned. He knew the drill. It was not as if this was his first bump to the head, or his first concussion. And even if he told that paramedic now that he had been unconscious earlier and had woken up again just fine without falling into a coma, he knew that it was senseless to start that discussion.

So instead he silently rolled his eyes and stared up at the roof of the ambulance. The paramedic tried to keep him talking while she took his blood pressure and did god only knew what else. Lassiter answered monosyllabically, just enough so that she was assured he wasn't falling asleep. He didn't even think about what he was saying. If that paramedic has just asked him if he was married to Madonna, he had agreed. If she had asked him if he was married to David Letterman, he had also agreed. And actually, he didn't particularly care.

Thinking was too much of a bother right now. He had told the Chief everything he could. She knew enough to take over the case, and Lassiter was relieved about that. Normally he liked to be in charge of things, but right now he'd gladly hand the case over to somebody else. Border patrol could take care of the guys trying to get to Mexico, and somebody else could try to find Greg in those woods in the middle of the night. Good luck to the poor bastards who had caught the night shift today.

Lassiter only wanted to sleep.

But he wasn't granted even that small mercy.

Oh, sure. In about an hour, after examination in the hospital he'd probably be allowed some time of drug induced sleep. Maybe even surgery. Just great. Anesthetics always screwed him up badly.

But Lassiter had no illusions about his injuries. By tomorrow morning, he'd have enough drugs in his bloodstream to sustain an aging Hollywood actress through at least a week.

He couldn't tell how much time had passed when the ambulance finally stopped. A moment later the doors were opened and his gurney was unloaded. It was a little disconcerting not to be able to see where he was going, but his position on the gurney had him staring straight up at the ceiling. He wondered if it was possible to get seasick from the ride on a gurney. Right now, he was tempted to say that if this transport took any longer, he might just need something to vomit into. But they hadn't made it far into the hospital when he heard a known voice.

"Hold on a moment!"

The movement on the gurney stopped and a whole stampede of footsteps approached him. Had they even left somebody at the station to mind the telephones?

Karen Vick's face was the first that came into his line of vision, followed quickly by O'Hara's and – oh joy! – Henry Spencer's. Judged by the expression on the Chief's face, Lassiter had to look even worse than he thought he did.

"My god, Carlton."

"Ma'am, we really need to bring the detective up for examination."

"You have already wheeled one of my men past without so much as saying a word." The Chief's voice sounded angry.

"'s allright…" Lassiter slurred, struggling to keep his eyes fixed on Karen Vick's face. "Spencer?"

Vick shrugged. "He arrived a few minutes ago, but they brought him away immediately."

"Where did all the blood come from?" Henry Spencer's voice sounded as if they were all standing on the brink of a catastrophe if he didn't get an answer to that particular question soon. "There was blood all over him, what happened?"

"Not his. The dead guy's. Long story."

"Ma'am, we really need to examine him now."

Vick nodded. "All right. You'll be fine, Carlton. I'll handle the situation from here."

Lassiter nodded, but his gurney was already moving and he could no longer keep his eyes on her face. They moved through a set of doors, around a corner and into a room.

All during the examination, Lassiter couldn't help but wonder where Spencer was right now. He had to be around somewhere, couldn't have arrived much earlier than he had. A few minutes, tops. Maybe he was even being examined in the room next to this, or the one across the hall. Lassiter hoped they'd also take a look at Spencer's shoulder, Lassiter wasn't comfortable with having set it without any form of medical aftercare.

Which brought him back to his own problems. His own shoulder.

His shirt and jacket were long ruined now, that was the only reason why he didn't get totally pissed as the nurses started cutting the fabric away from his torso. It had been his favorite shirt, too. Just for the record.

Spencer was going to buy him a new shirt, there was no way around that. And if it cost him an entire consulting fee, Lassiter didn't care.

X-rays. He hadn't had one of those in quite a while. If he asked nicely, maybe they'd perform his annual checkup right away, then he didn't need to schedule a doctor's appointment.

The examination took endless, but Lassiter was not in the least surprised when the final verdict was surgery on his shoulder wound. Obviously, the bullet had nicked his shoulder blade and they needed to fix something. Scratch out bone fragments, glue things back together, do a jigsaw puzzle on his shoulder blade. Whatever.

This was just great. Drug induced sleep and at least an entire day of total disorientation due to anesthesia. Just what he had had in mind for this weekend.

Oh, and he also still had a shot at the bonus prize, he shouldn't forget that. His wrist was broken, but they wanted to wait for the swelling to go down before they made the decision whether or not he needed surgery on that as well. Great. Two for the prize of one. But considering his wrist by now looked as if he had a baby whale attached to his left arm, this might take a while anyway.

Lassiter nodded as the ER doctor explained his injuries and the treatment he suggested, and he nodded his consent. He really did his best to at least pretend that he was in any condition to decide anything but when to draw the next breath, but the doctor seemed to buy it. Lassiter only hoped he hadn't just agreed to a gratuitous vasectomy.

The Chief was outside, she could take care of the paperwork. It wasn't as if he was in any way able to fill out his admittance forms. She had a badge. And a gun. Lassiter was sure that would work out somehow. But there was still his emergency contact list. He had wanted to update that one for months now.

His still-married-but-soon-to-be-ex-wife would probably just hang up when the hospital called. Maybe she'd tell them that it'd be no shame if they screwed up his medication dosage and he never woke up again. Lassiter didn't care.

But he distinctly remembered that his mother was also on that list.

Crap.

Suddenly, anesthesia and its aftermath didn't seem all that bad anymore. Maybe they'd give him an extra large shot of medication and he'd be out for two or three days. But who was he kidding. Knowing his luck, he'd be wide awake as soon as the medication wore off.

And he didn't even want to think about that right now. The Chief would rip him a new one if she got to know the details of what exactly had happened today. And she'd be right. Didn't mean Lassiter had any desire to go through it, though.

The doctor finished his examination and suddenly the gurney was moving again. Lassiter didn't care. He wanted to sleep. He only wanted to close his eyes and sleep. Maybe tomorrow morning he'd wake up and all this had been a bad dream.

He was barely aware on his way up to the operating theatre. The pre-operation procedures passed in a blur of hushes voices, bright light and green-clad people fussing around him. Then the anesthetic was inserted into his bloodstream and finally his eyes closed in exhausted, blissful, drug-induced sleep.


	8. Who knew that Shakespeare was right?

**Chapter 8 – Who knew that Shakespeare ****was right?**

He was still floating.

He didn't know where he was, or what had happened, but he remembered that at one point he had been floating. And now the sensation was still the same.

But something was different.

It was silent, for one.

And it was warm, and comfortable.

He was lying on something soft, and something was covering him. A blanket maybe. Whatever it was, it was a warm and comfortable gentle pressure against his chest. Compared to the pressure of Herb's body atop of his chest after that gun had jerked in his hand, it was heavenly.

From one moment to the next, Shawn was sitting bolt upright, feeling the bile rise in his throat as the memories came back. It wasn't a gentle process, no. Within a second, the memories were there in all their brutal clarity.

Him and Herb struggling for the gun.

The feeling of something pulling at his hand, the movement tightening the pressure of his finger on the trigger.

The jerk of the gun as the shot exploded between their bodies.

Herb's weight settling atop of him as he died.

Herb's blood running all over his hands in a warm steady flow, filling his nostrils with the smell of copper.

Shawn struggled out from underneath the blanket. He didn't even ask himself how he had ended up on a bed in the first place, or where the hell he was. He only had one thing on his mind.

He needed to get the blood off his hands. Maybe then that stench of copper would finally go away.

Something tore at his left arm, but Shawn didn't notice. In the dim light of the room, he stumbled and limped over the cold tiles and over towards the door to his left.

It was a bathroom. He couldn't tell how he had known, but somehow he had. A bathroom.

Shawn didn't bother with turning on any additional lights, the little light streaming in through the door was enough to make out the sink. That was all he needed. Something was restraining his right arm; for some reason he had some sort of sling around it, but he clumsily tore it away and turned on the water.

There was a container with antiseptic soap next to the sink, and Shawn lathered up his hands and started scrubbing at them furiously.

It was too dark in the bathroom to make out the blood on his hands, but Shawn didn't need to see it to know that it was there. He could smell it. He had felt it flowing over his skin, and now he needed to wash it off again.

Over the sound of the water and his furious scrubbing, Shawn didn't hear the door to his hospital room open. He didn't hear steps come into the room, halt, then turn towards the bathroom. He didn't even hear the voice calling out his name.

Shawn continued scrubbing at the blood on his fingers until a pair of hands was suddenly pushing at him. The water was turned off and the hands were on him now, trying to still his arms. Shawn's left wrist was encased in a firm grip, but he was still flailing around with his right hand, trying to wipe at the blood, when suddenly the lights in the bathroom lit up and a hand grabbed his right elbow.

"Shawn! Snap out of it!"

Panting heavily, Shawn found himself looking into his father's eyes.

"Shawn, stop! I want you to focus. Can you do that for me?"

Slowly, Shawn nodded. He could do that, of course. But he needed to wash off the blood, his father had to understand that.

"Shawn, do you hear me?"

Shawn nodded again. "Yeah." His voice came out as a hoarse croak.

"Good. We need to get you back into bed, kid."

Shawn shook his head. "No. No, I need to…the blood Dad. I need to wash off the blood."

"Hey." Henry's voice suddenly sounded softer than Shawn had ever heard it. "There is no blood anymore. The nurses washed it all off."

"No…" He could still smell the blood. His hands had been covered in blood.

"Shawn, look at your hands. Look at them!"

Slowly, Shawn looked down at his hands. They were wet and dripping onto the tiled floor. Some traces of soap still clung to his skin, but his hands were clean. A bandage was wrapped around his right wrist and it was partly soaked. But even the bandage was a clean white color with no trace of any red spots. There was no blood, not even under his fingernails. But how could that be? His hands had been drenched in blood.

"What…but there was all the blood."

"A nurse washed it off, Shawn. It's all right, the blood is gone."

And it was gone. His hands were clean, there was no trace of blood anywhere on them. But there was a thin rivulet of blood flowing down his left forearm.

"You pulled out your IV, kid. Come on, let's get you back to bed and call a nurse."

Numbly, Shawn nodded. He didn't understand what was going on here, but the blood was gone. That at least was something. He could go on from there.

Only now did he notice that he was wearing nothing but a hospital gown – one of the kind that didn't really close all the way in the back and left his backside uncomfortably cold. He was barefoot and his left ankle was wrapped in a brace-like bandage. The discarded sling from his arm was lying on the ground in front of him. Henry bent down and picked it up.

"Come on, back to bed."

He wrapped an arm around Shawn's waist. "Lean on me, that ankle has to hurt."

With his father's aid, Shawn hobbled back to bed. Henry pulled back the blanket and helped Shawn sit down.

"I'm going to call a nurse."

Henry pressed the call button on the side of Shawn's bed, then he sank down into a chair with a sigh.

"They said you probably wouldn't wake up for a while, otherwise I'd have been here. I was just getting coffee."

Shawn's eyes fell onto the paper cup which his father seemed to have hastily discarded onto the small table in the room. A huge brown stain of spilled liquid had poured over the light surface of the table. He nodded because he didn't really know whether his father's words had been a statement, an explanation or a question.

But he was spared the answer when the door to his room opened and a middle-aged woman came into the room.

"Good morning. It's still a bit early, what is the problem?"

The nurse, whose nametag identified her as Carol Yates, stepped up to Shawn's bed and eyed him critically.

Henry stepped in to spare his son the need to explain.

"He was a little disoriented when he woke up. He tore out his IV and got rid of his sling. You might need to change the bandage around his wrist, too."

Nurse Yates nodded. "All right, we can easily fix that." She looked at Shawn. "How are you feeling now? Still disoriented? Any dizziness?"

"No, I'm all right."

Nurse Yates nodded and stepped away from the bed. She opened the small supply cupboard next to the door and took out some items. She came back to the bed with a cotton pad which she pressed onto the still bleeding puncture wound in Shawn's elbow.

"Press that down tightly for a moment, would you?"

When Shawn automatically tried to bring up his right hand to hold the pad in place, nurse Yates stopped the movement and gave him a scolding look.

"I was talking to your father, Mr. Spencer. You are not supposed to use that arm. Actually, it should hurt you to move it in the first place. Which is why you are going to sit still until I'm finished, all right?"

Shawn nodded. "Yes."

"Good."

Ten minutes later Shawn's Shoulder was back in his sling, his wrist had been rewrapped and a new IV line had been inserted into Shawn's arm. Nurse Yates had been quick and efficient, but after Shawn's self inflicted wounds had been taken care of she had vanished again.

Which left Shawn alone with his father.

"How are you feeling?"

Shawn attempted to shrug, but his right shoulder hurt and the shrug ended before it had really begun. How did he feel? How was he supposed to feel after being chased around a mountain by two maniacs, one of whom he had shot? He was alive, that was something. It was more than Herb could say.

"I'm all right. Lassiter got off worse."

His heart started racing. Lassiter! How could he have forgotten about the detective?

"How is he?"

Henry forced himself to smile. "He'll be fine. One broken and one cracked rib, his left wrist is broken and the bullet wound in his shoulder needed surgery. His prognosis is good, but he's still out from the anesthetic. He should wake up in a few hours."

Shawn sank back into his pillow with a sigh. "That's good. What time is it? How long was I asleep?"

"It's half past six in the morning. You were brought here around half past ten last night, and the first time I was allowed to see you was an hour later. They gave you a mild sedative, but it sure knocked you out; you were already fast asleep by the time I got into your room." Henry folded his hands over his stomach. "Gus should come back soon."

"Oh no." Shawn's face twisted into a grimace. "Dad, you called Gus? He had his big date last night, he didn't want to be called."

"For somebody who didn't want to be called, he sure answered his phone quickly."

Shawn rolled his eyes. "No small wonder if he sees your name on his caller ID. Great, I'll never hear the end of that one, thank you so much Dad."

"He won't hold it against you."  
Shawn laughed mirthlessly. "Sure, _you_ should know."  
"Yes, I should know."  
Shawn frowned at the determined tone in his Dad's voice and turned so that he could look at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Henry sighed. "I promised him."

Shawn thought about that for a moment, but no matter how much he turned it, it didn't make sense.

"Gus won't hold crashing his date against me because you promised him? Dad, that doesn't make sense. What did you promise? To call him?"

Henry nodded. "Yeah."

Shawn still didn't understand what this was all about. His confusion must have been obvious on his face, because after a moment Henry sighed again and leaned forward.

"Remember when you took off on your bike, directly after you graduated high school?"

"Directly after you arrested me, you mean?"

Henry didn't rise to the bait, he merely nodded. "Yes. You just up and left from one moment to the next. It took you nearly two months to write the first letter to Gus, to let him know that you were doing all right."

Shawn shrugged with his good shoulder. "I still don't see what that's got to do with anything."

"Well, maybe Gus was worried when you just left like that, without a word? Can you imagine that? He dropped by the house one day, about two weeks after you left. Gus figured that if anything happened to you, sooner or later I'd be notified. That day he made me promise that I'd call him immediately if I ever got a call saying that something had happened, or that you were in hospital."

"Dad, that was twelve years ago."  
Henry shrugged. "It's still a promise. Gus is still your best friend. I don't see what has changed. Besides, I'm not stupid. I wouldn't want to face Gus if I hadn't called him immediately."

Shawn sighed in defeat and ran his uninjured hand over his face.

"Whoa kid, stop."

Henry's face on his wrist stopped the movement of Shawn's hand, and he looked at his father in obvious confusion.

"What's wrong?"

"I take it you didn't look into the mirror during your earlier trip to the bathroom."

Henry started to look around the room, then he got up and vanished into the bathroom again. When he came back, there was a small hand-held mirror in his hand. He sat down again and gave the mirror to Shawn.

"The doctors are pretty sure that there won't be any scars, it's mostly superficial abrasions, but right now your face looks as if you had fallen into a meat grinder. You shouldn't be picking at the wounds, otherwise they might leave scars after all."

Slowly, Shawn brought up the mirror and looked at his face. The left side of his face looked all right. Normal, except for a small bruise on his cheekbone. But the right side of his face…

Shawn remembered how he had slid along with his cheek against the ground during their first fall down the mountain, but as their flight from the two armed killers had gotten more intense, he had all but forgotten about that injury. There had been more important matters to think about.

But his entire right cheek, the right side of his chin and forehead, all that was nothing but an intersecting maze of scratches. Some of them had scabbed over already, but some of the deeper ones hadn't. The wounds had been treated with some disinfecting solution which had left an orange hue to what little skin could be seen between the scratches.

His father hadn't been wrong with the meat grinder comparison.

Shawn looked at the wounds for a little longer, then he put the mirror down with a sigh. Henry picked it up and put it on the bedside table.

"It'll take some time to heal, but you'll be all right. Your shoulder was dislocated, but I guess you already knew that."

"Lassiter set it."

"Yeah, that's what the doctors guessed. Did a good job of it, too. But you pulled some muscles and tendons, so you should keep the arm still for a few days. Your right wrist is sprained and badly abraded from the cuffs, so you won't really be able to use that arm much, anyway. There's some ligament damage to your left ankle, but it won't need surgery. At least not if you don't strain it."

"That's it?"

Henry sighed. "Mild concussion, shock, about a hundred scratches and bruises, one of which on your side is shaped suspiciously like a boot. But yeah, that's it. It could have been a lot worse."

Shawn nodded numbly. "Yeah. I got lucky."

Henry leaned forward and leaned his arms on this thighs. "Listen Shawn, I need some answers. Karen needs some answers. Up until the moment you called me, nobody knew that anything was wrong. Lassiter was halfway coherent before he was sedated for the surgery, but still nobody knows what exactly happened."

Shawn nodded. He had absolutely no desire to relive anything that had happened the previous day. None at all. He had hoped that Lassiter could do all the explaining, but if the detective had just gone through surgery, there was no way Shawn would be able to evade that particular conversation.

"Maybe you should call the Chief, then. I don't particularly want to tell it over and over again."

Something flickered across Henry's face at those words, but it was gone too quickly for Shawn to determine exactly what it had been. After a moment, he got up from his chair.

"I'm going to call her. Try to get some more rest in the meantime."

Shawn sank back into his pillows and looked after his father's retreating form. As if he was going to get any rest now, with the outlook of reliving the previous day again in all its gory details.

Forty-five minutes later, Chief Vick and Juliet had arrived in the hospital and were sitting beside Shawn's bed. Both women looked tired, but Juliet even more so than the Chief. Gus had been last to arrive, and since no chair was left for him he was leaning against the wall facing Shawn's bed. He hadn't said a single thing about his interrupted date from the previous evening, but Shawn was sure that sooner or later the topic would come up.

Shawn didn't quite meet anybody's eyes. Instead, he pretended that the plate with breakfast on the tray in front of him was the most interesting thing in the world. Granted, it was actually kind of interesting, because Shawn had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to be. It was a thin, greyish mush. Not jell-o, though for some reason it smelled strangely like lemons. It could be porridge, but actually it looked more like a soup. But who would hand out soups for breakfast? Whatever it was, Shawn had absolutely no intention of eating it.

Nobody had spoken since Gus' arrival, but now Chief Vick shifted in her chair and cleared her throat.

"Mr. Spencer, I would really like to know what happened yesterday. When Detective Lassiter didn't come back from his coffee break, I didn't expect the reason to be quite so serious."

"How is he?"

The Chief's gaze softened slightly and a smile tugged on the corners of her mouth. "As of fifteen minutes ago, I would say he's well, if a little…incoherent. It might take a little while longer for the anesthetic to wear off, it seems he has an interesting reaction to being sedated. But his doctor assured me that given some time for recovery, he'll be fine."

Shawn nodded. "What about those guys?"

It was obvious that the Chief much rather wanted to hear the things she didn't know, but she decided to indulge Shawn just this once.

"Border patrol stopped two cars that matched the description Lassiter gave. They had hidden the jewels inside the gas-tank. All four thieves are arrested and accounted for. They're still being held by border patrol and will be transported back to Santa Barbara this afternoon. O'Hara has been working the crime scene last night."

At the word crime scene, Shawn's stomach contracted painfully. The Chief was talking about the place where he had shot Herb. Unbidden, the images started to flash before his eyes again and Shawn took a deep breath to keep his stomach from heaving.

"What about the other guy? Did you catch him?"

This time, it was Juliet who spoke. "No. The only trace of him we found were shell casings on the road, from the shots he fired. We got one bullet that hit the truck, but it's not yet clear whether or not it's too damaged to compare it to other bullets on record. There were no tracks we could follow on the scene, but there are still units canvassing through the mountains. But by the time we arrived on the scene, he was long gone."

"We're going to need a description, Mr. Spencer."

Shawn shook his head. "I never really got to see him, Chief. Not his face at least. It was too dark."

Vick nodded with a disappointed sigh. She gestured for O'Hara to take out her notebook.

"And now Mr. Spencer, I'm going to need you to tell me exactly what happened that caused you and detective Lassiter to end up where we found you. I want every detail, and I want you to start at the very beginning."

Shawn drew a deep breath, then he started to tell. He knew that it was pointless to leave anything out, as soon as Lassiter woke up again he'd go through pretty much the same conversation anyway. So he told them everything from the moment he had figured out the case and where those jewel thieves had stored their getaway cars. He told them about the hubcaps falling and their getting caught, about the car-ride into the mountains and about being handcuffed to Lassiter to the sink.

The curse of a brilliant memory was that Shawn could still recite every single detail of what had happened the previous day, but all through his account of the events he didn't look up. Not even when he heard Juliet's startled gasp as he described the first tumble down the mountain and how he had nearly drowned in the spring.

The only thing he left out was his fight with Lassiter, right before the detective had been shot. He didn't leave out the fact that they had had an argument, anybody in the room could have probably guessed that the two men being forced to endure each other that closely for an entire day would not manage to do so without getting into a fight. But he left out what they had been fighting about, and also that he was sure that it had been their shouting which had told Herb where to find them in the first place.

The most difficult part was telling them what had happened after their second fall down the mountain. He didn't want to think about struggling with Herb for the gun anymore. He didn't want to think about what it had felt like to feel the gun jerk in his hand and to feel Herb's blood run down his hands. Actually, Shawn only wanted to close his eyes and skip this part entirely, but he knew that he couldn't.

Herb's body had been found, Chief Vick wouldn't let him off the hook until he told her how the man had died. It might be best to owe up to what he had done right away, even if he did so in clipped tones and short sentences.

_He wanted to kill us._

_Lassiter was in bad shape._

_I made a grab for his gun._

_We struggled._

_The gun went off._

Nobody interrupted him, but Shawn also couldn't bring himself to look up and see the reaction on their faces. Besides, he could already guess what they looked like. Unreadable in his father's case. His Dad would save his reaction for later. The Chief would look serious, Juliet's eyes would be widened slightly, and Gus would look positively horrified. No need to look if he already knew it.

It didn't take long for Shawn to finish his account of what had happened after that. With a sigh, he leaned back in his bed and stared at a point somewhere above and to the left of Gus' head.

It took a minute until somebody spoke again. Not surprisingly, it was Chief Vick who did. "What I don't understand Mr. Spencer, is why you called your father. Why didn't you or Detective Lassiter call the station, or O'Hara, or me?"

Shawn chuckled mirthlessly. "We had just been speeding down a mountain road to escape the guy with the gun. I wasn't really fit for driving a car. Lassiter was shot. It was totally chaotic. My Dad's number was the first number either of us remembered."  
Vick nodded. "And you are sure that you cannot give a description of the second man?"

Shawn shook his head. "The only time I saw his face, it was dark. He was a white guy, that's all I can say. White guy who wore jeans and boots. I would recognize his voice for sure, but not his face. I'm sorry."

Vick nodded and got up from her chair. "Very well, Mr. Spencer. We're going to need this in form of an official statement, but that can wait until you are released from hospital. For now, we are going to try our best to find this other man, though I have to say that with so little to go on, I'm not overly optimistic about that. Once you are out of here we will also have a very serious conversation about your involvement in police investigations."

Shawn didn't like the sound of that, but he had expected it. Vick couldn't afford to employ police consultants who killed people.

"Get better soon, Mr. Spencer."

Shawn nodded at the Chief. "Thanks."

Vick turned back towards Juliet. "And you go home and get some rest, O'Hara. I need you rested when the first results from forensics come in. Gentlemen."

A chorus or murmured goodbyes guided Chief Vick out of the room. Juliet gave Shawn a smile that was probably meant to be encouraging, but which merely looked tired. She said her goodbyes and followed Vick out of the room.

Which left Gus and his Dad. Shawn didn't quite dare to look at his Dad just yet, so he hesitantly looked at Gus.

"Sorry about crashing your date."  
Gus sighed and shook his head. "Never mind. It wasn't going so well, anyway. Besides, rushing off because your best friend is in trouble is an impressive excuse to leave early."

He didn't sound as convincing as Gus would have probably liked, but they were spared any further need to attempt conversation by Henry. It seemed that his Dad thought that now was an appropriate moment for his own reaction.

"Gus, would you give us a moment?"

Gus nodded. "Sure. I'll go drink a coffee. I need to call in at work, too. I'll be back in a little while."  
He left the room, and as the door closed behind him, his Dad got up from his chair and walked over to the foot end of the bed. Shawn only needed to take one look at his Dad's face to know what he was in for now. It were subtle signs, but Shawn had learned to read his father over the years. Narrowed eyes, the vein on his forehead that was throbbing slightly, jaw set firmly and his lips pressed together in a thin line. After a closer look, it weren't even subtle signs this time, but obvious ones.

His father was furious.

Shawn sighed and tried to press himself further into his pillows. "Just get it over with."

"What?"

Tightly controlled voice, too. Not too loud, but every single letter pronounced sharply. This was the real deal on the Henry Spencer fury-scale.

"I can see that you're angry, you're nearly bursting with the lecture you need to deliver, so just get it over with."

Henry exhaled loudly and ran a hand over his balding head. "What did you expect? Did you think I'd throw you a party after what you just said? Did you think I'd say _'Good job, nobody died, and only one bad guy got away'_?"

That wasn't even true. Somebody had died, but Shawn knew that his father didn't mean it that way. It was the cop thinking, if an Officer had been in danger and survived, you tended to blend out the dead bad guys. One more reason why Shawn thought he could never become a cop.

"Listen Dad, don't you think I'd change things if I could?"

"But that's exactly the problem, isn't it?"

Henry started pacing up and down in front of the bed. "That's exactly what your problem is. You just stumble into things blindly, without a plan and without the proper preparation, then you feel your way along and hope that you catch the bad guy without anybody getting hurt in the process. But in police work you can't rely on a quick tongue and dumb luck! Something like this just had to happen sooner or later!"

Shawn sat up straighter in his bed. "You're just glad that it's all my fault again. No matter how many cases I've solved without any incidents, no matter how often I've actually _helped_ the police when they were stuck, you're glad that I've screwed up on this one just so that you have something to berate me for. What's next? The usual lecture about why this wouldn't have happened if I was a cop?"

"Of course it wouldn't have happened if you were a cop! If you were a cop you'd have had backup, you'd have had a weapon, you wouldn't have been the unarmed civilian because of whom Lassiter had to surrender his weapon in the first place!"

They were both yelling now, but Shawn no longer cared. Conversations with his Dad were only remarkable if they didn't end in yelling. And Shawn was royally fed up with his father trying to place all the blame on him. Especially since his father was completely missing the point of what had gone so horribly wrong yesterday.

"Yes Dad, I know. I screwed up everybody's life by not becoming a cop. But you know what? Lassiter is a cop. Lassiter had a gun, and it didn't help him any, either."

"Because Lassiter screwed up!" Henry stopped his pacing and pointed a finger at Shawn. "Lassiter went into an unknown situation without backup and with a civilian in tow. He should have known better. He should have called for backup and as soon as he is coherent again, Karen is going to chew him out for it. But I have a newsflash for you, Shawn. Lassiter is not your babysitter. Just because he misjudged a situation it doesn't mean you're free of blame!"

"Of course it doesn't!" In his anger, Shawn tried to gesture with his left arm and tore at his IV again. With a frustrated sigh, he let his hand sink back atop of the blanket. "As far as you are concerned, I'm never free of blame. Whatever I do, you always find something to blame me for. That's nothing new!"

Henry kicked his foot against the nearest chair in frustration. "What do you want me to do? Do you want me to sit by and watch you pull your little charade until somebody gets killed?"

"Somebody got killed, Dad!"

Shawn didn't know where that outburst had come from, but it was enough to silence his father for a moment. Shawn seized the opportunity.

"Somebody got killed, Dad. _I_ killed somebody. We struggled for the gun, I pulled the trigger and now he is dead. So don't go around and try to tell me that nobody got killed, all right?"

Henry sighed and ran his hands over his face. "Listen Shawn, what happened was an accident. That guy would have killed you and Lassiter. You didn't have any choice but to make a grab for the gun."

"And what does that change, Dad? He's still dead. I still killed him. And the last thing I need right now is to have you giving me the lecture about how everything in everybody's life would be better if I had become a cop. I hate it that no matter what I do, no matter what happens, you always reduce everything to the fact that I didn't become what you wanted me to be. I'm sick and tired of it! Just leave me alone with that self-righteous crap, all right?"

Henry laughed out without any real mirth. "Of course you're sick and tired of it. You're always sick and tired of things you don't want to hear. Yes, you killed a man yesterday Shawn. You killed him in self-defense, but that doesn't change the fact that he is dead because you pulled the trigger. But let me tell you something Shawn: if you keep involving yourself in police work, you have to take this. You damn well better learn to face the fact that something like this can happen. You can't just pick out the good parts, the fun and the glory. If you do a cop's job, you'll have to face the ugly sides of a cop's job as well. Sometimes, people shoot each other. Sometimes, the perp pulls a gun on you. And sometimes, when you really don't have any other choice, you have to shoot the bad guy before they shoot you. If you're not ready to face that, then you have no place doing what you're doing!"

At those words, Shawn saw red. "Did you ever pause to think that exactly this is the reason why I never became a cop?"

Seeing the expression on his father's face, Shawn laughed. "Of course you didn't. You thought it was all about you, didn't you? You thought I didn't become a cop just to spite you. Another explanation probably never even occurred to you! Finally understand it Dad, I am not you! I am not a cop, and I am not somebody who shoots somebody else, shrugs it off and then goes back to normal. That's not me."

Henry raised both eyebrows. "Oh no?"

"No, but you wouldn't know! You never cared to find out who I really am!"

"You're wrong there, kid. _You_ never dared to find out who you really are! You never stuck to one thing long enough to let it have any influence on you, you never settled on anything because you were afraid to wake up one morning to find out that you had become somebody you didn't want to be. You never grew up! So don't blame me now because this time real life caught up with you before you had the chance to run away!"

"Just leave me alone with that, all right? I've disappointed you, yet again, nothing new there. You don't understand the first thing about me, or about what happened yesterday. So just leave me alone, all right?"

Henry threw his hands in the air. "You know what? I will. I'll just leave you alone!" He grabbed his jacket from the back of his previously vacated chair and shrugged into it. "But don't think I'll come running again the next time you call me because you got yourself into trouble again. If what happened yesterday doesn't make you reconsider this whole fake-psychic charade, leave me out of it in the future!"  
Henry turned around and stormed out of the room without so much as another look at his son.

Shawn watched as his father slammed the door shut, then he sank back against the mattress with a sigh. He hadn't even noticed how tense he had been. Conversations with his father tended to do that to him.

Maybe a minute after his father had stormed out of the room, there was a knock on the door and Gus returned. He looked a little confused.

"Any specific reason why I met your father in the lobby, storming out of the hospital with an expression on his face that would have made little children cry?"

Shawn shook his head. "You don't want to know."

Both Gus' eyebrows went up in silent confusion. "Okay."

Shawn sighed and forced himself to smile at his friend. "All right, how about you tell me about your date with Kendra. What did you mean, it wasn't going so well? You prepared for this date like never before. What went wrong?"

Gus sat down in the chair Henry had previously vacated. "You want to talk about my date? After everything that happened…you know…yesterday, you want to talk about my date?"

This time, the smile came easier. "Yes Gus. That's exactly what I want."

Gus leaned back in his chair and watched Shawn for a long moment, then he shrugged. "All right. So, actually it started when I picked her up already. She's still living with her parents, can you believe that? At her age? And while I was waiting for her to get ready…"

Shawn was only half listening to what Gus was telling him. He lay there and ignored the stinging sensation in his cheek, the throbbing of his shoulder and the muscle pain he felt everywhere as he listened to his best friend rant on about how annoying Kendra had turned out to be. It was soothing, this little piece of normality. He could nearly pretend that the past day hadn't happened, and that life could ever be normal again.


	9. Through the Looking Glass

**Chapter 9 – ****Through the Looking Glass**

Gus brought Shawn a bag of clothes when he came for another visit later that day. Shawn was eternally grateful that he was finally able to change out of that backside-revealing hospital gown. Aside from Gus, however, nobody else came for a visit.

Shawn hadn't expected his Dad to show up again after he had stormed out. And Chief Vick and Juliet surely were still busy trying to wrap up the jewel heist case. Gus had rounds to finish in the afternoon, and after he left, Shawn was getting bored.

Not that he planned on staying in the hospital for any longer, anyway. His IV had been taken out shortly before noon, all his injuries were treated and wrapped up, so he saw absolutely no need to spend another night in a place where they considered thin grey jelly-like goo that smelled of lemons breakfast. His doctor's advice was that he needed to rest and give his arm and leg time to heal. Great, he could do that at home, too. Cable TV and takeout food were only an additional bonus.

Yearlong experience had turned Shawn into an expert on filling out the forms required for dismissing himself AMA. It took only fifteen minutes, then he was equipped with a crutch, a bottle of pain medication and a whole bag of good advice on what he shouldn't be doing over the next few days. All in all, he was ready to leave.

At least, nearly.

One more thing that needed to be done.

Shawn stood in front of the closed door for a moment, but then he drew a deep breath, knocked and entered the room.

Lassiter was lying in the single bed by the window. He was lying on his back with his eyes closed, the blanket pulled up to his chest. His right arm was immobilized similarly to Shawn's and a gauze bandage covering his shoulder wound stuck out from underneath the collar of his hospital gown. The head detective was still hooked up to an IV in his left arm, and his left wrist was encased in a Velcro-brace that left no doubt as to the degree of swelling in the limb.

Slowly so as not to wake Lassiter, Shawn stepped up to the bed. But as soon as he came into the detective's line of vision, Lassiter opened his eyes. Blearily, the blue eyes focused on Shawn, then Lassiter closed them again with a sigh.

"Spencer." It was more a groan than a word. "I thought I had you on my list of people I don't want to see."

Shawn cocked his head to the side. "Yes, but as far as the nurses know, I am not Shawn Spencer. I am Bjorndahl Heisenbergen, a worried high school classmate who dropped by for a visit. Officially I'm here to inform you that the clog-dancing committee decided to wait for your full recovery before they start preparing the choreography for next summer's reunion party. The clog-dancing group simply isn't the same without its front-line solo dancer. The nurses were very understanding when I told them the story."

Lassiter rolled his eyes beneath half-closed lids. "What do you want, Spencer?"

Shawn's expression sobered. "I just wanted to check in and see how you're doing."

"I'll be fine. They'll let me out in a few days."

"What about your wrist?"

"The swelling needs to go down some more. But I probably won't need another surgery."

Shawn nodded. That was indeed good news. "You spoke to Chief Vick already?"

Lassiter nodded slowly. "Yes, she was here earlier. Another reason why I need to get out of here. There's a lot of work to be done."

Shawn seriously doubted that Lassiter would be able to do much work in the near future. Not with a broken left wrist and a right arm that was temporarily rendered useless because of the bullet wound in his shoulder.

"Don't you think that you should wait with that until you have at least one arm in working condition?"

"I don't think that's your problem, Spencer."

It was interesting how sharp Lassiter's voice could sound despite his obviously weakened condition. "You just leave that to me."

Shawn sighed. "All right. I just dropped by to say goodbye, anyway."

A frown showed on Lassiter's face. "They released you already?"

"I released myself. I can just as well lie around at home. So…well, get better. Bye."

Shawn turned and hobbled back towards the door on his crutch. He'd take a cab home, order some takeout and work himself through his DVD collection. It was as good a plan as any.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

_Lassiter was a dead weight attached to his right arm as he lunged forward and reached for the gun. He felt his fingers around the butt of the weapon, but then Herb was there, trying to pry his fingers off. They fell to the floor in a tumbled heap, Herb atop of him, and then something was pulling at his hand, his finger was tightening on the trigger, and in a deafening explosion the gun went off._

_Herb fell on top of him, heavy and lifeless, his blood running down Shawn's hands which were still clenched around the gun. Herb's wide eyes were staring down at him, glazed over and devoid of life. Life which Shawn had taken._

_He couldn't breathe._

_He couldn't breathe and he couldn't move. He struggled, but he couldn't move Herb's body just an inch away from himself. The dead man's weight was crushing him. He was chocking on the weight of the life he had taken, and still the blood was running over his hands…_

"No!" Shawn jerked upright, his breathing harsh and fast, eyes straying blindly around the room.

The room.

He hadn't been in a room when he had shot Herb. He hadn't killed a man in his own bedroom. He was at home now.

Shawn looked down at his hands only to find himself absent-mindedly rubbing them against the blanket in an attempt to wipe off the invisible blood.

Ever so slowly, his heartbeat returned back to normal. He was in his apartment, in his own bed, far away from the place where he had killed Herb. It had just been a nightmare.

The clock on his bedside table read 5:34 am. With a long sigh, Shawn rubbed his hands over his face, then threw the blanket back and got out of bed. He could as well get up now, he'd not fall asleep again, anyway.

His mind might have been fully awake, but his body was still busy catching up as he slowly stumbled over into the bathroom to take a shower.

It had been a bit more than two weeks now since that day when he had shot Herb. His physical wounds were healing nicely. Shawn had gotten rid of the sling around his arm two days after he had left the hospital. The brace around his ankle had been replaced by a tight bandage after a week, and in a few days he could leave that off, as well. His right wrist was still slightly abraded from the handcuff, but it wasn't hurting anymore.

Only his face still bore the marks of that first downhill slide, although a great number of the scabs and scratches had already healed over. But there were still plenty of scratches left. Enough to turn heads on the streets.

And of course there were the nightmares. Shawn tried to tell himself that they had gotten better over the past weeks. And they had, at least in the way that by now he mostly woke up only once a night, sweating and entangled in his blankets as he tried to push Herb's dead body off his chest.

He only needed to give it some time.

By the time the visible marks of what had happened were gone, the nightmares should lessen. Or so Shawn hoped.

He turned on the hot water and stepped under the blissful spray with his eyes closed.

Besides, he had gotten off lightly, compared to what could have happened. And that didn't only mean his physical wounds, or the nightmares.

A few days after he had left the hospital, Chief Vick had called Shawn to the police station. Shawn had only waited for that call; he hadn't forgotten her remark about their upcoming discussion concerning his involvement in police work.

During her visit to the hospital, Chief Vick had quite obviously held her anger and disappointment on a tight leash. During their conversation in her office, she had loosened that leash quite a bit. Shawn had received a thorough reprimand by Karen Vick, one his Dad would have been proud of.

For endless minutes he listened to the Chief as she gave him a detailed description of the word _consultant_, and why that meant he was not supposed to even come into a situation where there were firearms involved. He silently nodded when Chief Vick told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to involve himself in active police investigations on scenes that hadn't been declared safe, that he was not supposed to enter unknown and possibly hostile situations, whether or not an officer was accompanying him. He didn't even utter a word of complaint when Chief Vick officially reprimanded him and banned him from working any police cases for the next four weeks.

He also knew that she was serious with her threat that if something like that happened just once more, he'd never work for the SBPD again for as long as she was in charge.

But that wasn't really a problem. Shawn didn't particularly want to work any cases at the moment, anyway. Besides, there was no fun in it if he couldn't at least tease Lassiter a little along the way. And after what had happened, teasing Lassiter was out of he question for a long, long time.

The head detective had spent a week in hospital to recover from the surgery. He had been released with his left wrist in a cast, his right shoulder in a bandage and only limited movement in his right arm. His broken ribs were healing and were still wrapped up tightly, but a week after his release he had been cleared for desk duty.

Shawn hadn't been at the station during Lassiter's first morning of duty, but he knew what had happened. Everybody at the station knew what had happened, and probably the people living with a one mile radius of the station had heard it in a live broadcast through their windows.

Shawn had received a reprimand from Chief Vick.

Lassiter had been on the receiving end of a chewing-out of biblical proportions.

Chief Vick might have closed the door and drawn the blinds on her office, but her office wasn't soundproof. Probably, even a soundproof office wouldn't have been enough to contain the Chief's enraged voice.

For nearly fifteen minutes, Chief Vick had dressed Lassiter down for going into a hostile situation without even calling for backup, for going into that situation with a civilian consultant, for behaving like a rookie fresh from the academy and not like a head detective with eleven years of experience under his belt.

All through that time, Lassiter hadn't said a single word, neither in his defense nor in an attempt to explain and justify his actions. He had listened wordlessly to the Chief pointing out every single mistake he had made that day; he listened to her as she made a list of things that could have gone wrong, or even more wrong, and he didn't even say anything when Chief Vick started to list the disciplinary actions and consequences she had decided to take.

A notice for reckless behavior unbecoming an officer in Lassiter's file.

Two weeks suspension without pay.

One more mistake like that and he'd be busted back to traffic control.

Lassiter hadn't spoken to anybody on his way out of the station, and nobody had dared to approach him, either. According to Buzz McNabb, Lassiter had looked ready to either explode or keel over, neither of which was an occurrence anybody wanted to be held responsible for.

The two week suspension wasn't the problem, Shawn knew that. Suspension without pay was hard, but it wouldn't drive Lassiter to the brink of bankruptcy by a long shot. Though he was cleared for desk duty, Lassiter needed more time to heal, anyway. Being stuck at his desk was already punishment enough for the man, being stuck there with a broken wrist and an injured arm was ridiculous. Lassiter was better off recuperating at home than doing that.

But a suspension was a blemish, it was a punishment that cut into the morale and the reputation of a cop. Suspension was a punishment associated with misbehavior, and for a cop as straight-laced as Lassiter was, that was probably the hardest part of the suspension.

But what was far worse than the suspension was the blemish on Lassiter's file. A notice for reckless behavior was bad, and it was even worse that it would remain there. There might not be any consequences from it in the near future, but when the next round of promotions was due, that notice would rear its ugly head again.

And, much as he loathed to admit it, it was Shawn's fault. He had underestimated the situation at the warehouse when he had called Lassiter in. True, Lassiter could have called for backup and hadn't. But Shawn had underestimated the situation as well. He was the one who had called Lassiter, and he had been the one who had left Lassiter with the impression that calling for backup wasn't necessary. He had realized that Lassiter wasn't taking him serious, but Shawn had done nothing to make him think any differently of the situation.

And now Lassiter's career had taken serious damage because of it.

No, teasing Lassiter was definitely out of the question for a long time.

Shawn got dressed and listlessly spooned down some cornflakes for breakfast as he tried to make plans for the day. Not that there were any urgent appointments to keep.

Gus was busy working what he insisted on calling his first job. And for the first time, Shawn considered that somewhat of a blessing. Since his release from the hospital, Shawn had been hesitant to accept cases. They were out of official police business anyway for the time being, but Shawn didn't want to work private cases right now, either. Not when his thoughts weren't really focused on them.

Clearing his empty bowl away, Shawn got up and grabbed his jacket. He needed to get out of the apartment.

His bike, along with Lassiter's car, had been recovered by the police in the warehouse where the whole mess had started. Gus had uttered his doubts as to whether Shawn was already fit to drive again, but Shawn didn't want to hear anything about it. His shoulder was fine, he could drive the bike. He could stand a little pain in his arm, and it wasn't as if he was straining his ankle while he was sitting on the bike.

Shawn didn't know where he was driving, but he wasn't surprised when he ended up parking his bike in front of the office. Gus wasn't there, he was holding a presentation somewhere, but Shawn didn't intend to go in, anyway. Instead, he parked the bike and walked down the promenade towards the beach. There was an empty bench, and Shawn sat down and put his helmet down beside him.

It was a beautiful day. Still early in the year, so the beach wasn't crowded with tourists and surfers yet, but it was warm enough to just sit in the sun, stare out towards the ocean and think.

And Shawn had a lot of thinking to do right now.

It was still the same ocean as it had been the last time Shawn had sat on this bench, but everything else had changed. Everything.

He had killed a man, and now everything was different.

This wasn't about his injuries, or the nightmares.

It wasn't even about Lassiter's injuries, or the punishment the detective had received.

As much as Shawn loathed to admit it, his father was right.

Oh, not with everything he had said, not by a long shot. Not even with most of what he had said. No, but his father had been right with one thing.

If he wanted to be a fake psychic detective consulting with the police, he needed to face the ugly sides of that business as well. And so far, he had always thought that he was. He was facing the worst things of what people could do to each other whenever he consulted on a case. He saw the bodies, he investigated the crimes. And up until two weeks ago, he thought he was facing those ugly sides.

Now he knew he wasn't.

Come on, he was facing murder victims on a daily basis. And he didn't pale or squeal like Gus. He just pushed it away, distanced himself so far from it that he only saw the clues and how they led him to solving the case.

Only now he could no longer do that. Not after he had pulled that trigger. Not after he had killed a man.

Shawn didn't think that he'd ever be able to look at a body again without thinking about those moments when the gun had jerked in his hand and Herb's blood had started to flow over his hands.

He wanted to forget that it had ever happened. He didn't want to be reminded of what he had done every day.

So his father had been right with something. He'd never admit it in his father's face, though. But that wouldn't happen anytime soon, anyway.

Shawn hadn't spoken to his father since Henry had stormed out of the hospital that day. And he had no intention of changing that. In Henry Spencer's world, being the one to make the first step would mean admitting that he had been wrong. And he hadn't been. Just because his Dad had been right about one thing didn't mean that he had been right with everything. Not by a long shot.

_You're wrong there, kid. You never dared to find out who you really are! You never stuck to one thing long enough to let it have any influence on you, you never settled on anything because you were afraid to wake up one morning to find out that you had become somebody you didn't want to be. You never grew up! So don't blame me now because this time real life caught up with you b__efore you had the chance to run away!_

That was one thing his father had been wrong about. Shawn should have known. Two years of trying to mend the fences between them, and still his father saw him as nothing but the eighteen year old boy who had left Santa Barbara because he hadn't been able to stand disappointing his father's high expectations anymore.

He no longer was the same that he had been back then, but his father refused to see that. Henry Spencer refused to see that his son had evolved, and maybe even grown up a little.

Shawn hadn't run away back then because he hadn't wanted to settle on something. He had run away because he had been afraid that if he stayed, he would eventually cave to his father's pressure. He had been afraid that if he stayed, he'd wake up one day and hate what he had become because it wasn't what he wanted to be.

Was it his fault that at eighteen, he hadn't yet known what he wanted to be?

His Dad would never understand why Shawn had needed to get out, why he had taken on all these jobs, why he had traveled the country without ever staying in the same place for longer than a few months. For eighteen years, Henry Spencer had tried to mold his son into something he simply wasn't. Was it so surprising that it had taken Shawn a few additional years to find out who he was and what he wanted from his life?

But his father had been wrong.

Because in the end he had settled. He had stuck with something and allowed it to influence how he was leading his life. _Psych_ had been what he had settled on.

So what if it was what his father had wanted all along? It was essentially the same, but his father didn't see the crucial differences.

Yes, in the end Shawn had settled on doing a cop's job. He was investigating crimes. He was solving cases. But he was doing it by his own rules, not by his father's.

Of course he could have done the same job if he had gone to the Academy and become a cop, like his father had always wanted. But that wouldn't have been _him_. That would have been who his father wanted him to be.

He had needed to go the long way. He had needed to do all these jobs, to drive the Wiener mobile, to be the ski-lift operator, the work at the Indian Casino. He had needed to move around the country. Because he had needed to find out where he didn't belong and what he didn't want to do for the rest of his life. How could he have known who he was and what he wanted to do if he hadn't tried any alternatives?

But his Dad would never understand that. Never.

Doing something any other way than the Henry Spencer way was simply not acceptable. In his father's eyes he had taken the easy way out. His father thought that he had only evaded his ultimate destiny of becoming a crime-solving superstar, and that even by the time Shawn could no longer deny that this was what he was meant to be, he had taken the easy way.

His father just didn't understand him.

He didn't understand that Psych was the first thing Shawn was happy with. The first thing he had stuck with not only through the ups, but also through the downs. It was the first thing Shawn had built up on his own, and he had been happy doing what he was doing. He could do what he was good at, and he could do it his own way. It was a constant challenge.

But now even that was tainted.

Psych had been Shawn's niche in reality, but now he wasn't so sure about that anymore.

That one day had changed everything.

That shot had changed everything.

And his father would not even believe him that. But the main reason why Shawn had never even seriously contemplated becoming a cop was the gun.

He knew how to shoot, and he was a good shot. But it was one thing to be good at shooting holes into paper targets to please his father.

It was a totally different thing to shoot a bullet at a living, breathing human being and watch the life vanish from their eyes.

Shawn loved solving puzzles. That's what would have made him a great cop. But he just couldn't carry a weapon and accept the possibility that he might have to use it against another human being. That was why he couldn't become a cop.

Only now he had shot somebody.

He had killed somebody, and that would never go away again. That could never be undone.

And it had changed everything.

It had changed his life.

It was time he faced that, no matter what his father thought about it. His father didn't know him well enough to judge him, anyway.

After one last look at the ocean and the waves rolling onto the beach, he picked up his helmet and got up from the bench.

It was time he faced the fact that his life had changed.

It was time he accepted that everything was different now, that even the one thing he had thought he could settle on was irrevocably changed now.

As Shawn walked back towards his bike, he knew that there was only one thing left for him to do.

He had reached a dead end, and now he needed to back trace his steps and start searching again.


	10. Epilogue

**Epilogue – Until Further Notice**

Gus knew that something was wrong.

Oh, a lot of things had been wrong over the past weeks, ever since that evening when Henry Spencer had called him during his date with Kendra.

Gus had been shocked at what had happened. The whole story about Shawn and Lassiter being caught by those guys and brought into the woods to die was bad enough, but that wasn't what had shocked Gus so badly. He and Shawn had been in tough spots during cases before.

No, what had really made an ice-cold feeling crawl down Gus' spine had been the look on Shawn's face as he had told them about the shooting. His friend's voice had been so incredibly detached as he recounted the events, and his face had been a closed up mask that had betrayed no emotion. But worst of all had been the eyes. True enough, Shawn had kept his head bent during his recounting of the story, but Gus had caught glimpses of his friend's eyes.

Shawn had told him once about the small signs ins body language that betrayed liars. Back then he had said the one thing that always spoke the truth were a person's eyes. And Gus didn't need his friend's superior observational skills to see that something had been missing from Shawn's eyes that day. They had been dull, nearly glazed over, without their usual sparkle and the promise of upcoming mischief. They had looked like a shop's window after the '_closed until further notice_' sign had been put up. Empty.

Shawn had killed somebody.

Justified or not, self-defense or not, Gus knew how badly this was affecting his friend.

But the really bad thing was that Shawn simply closed up. Except for that one time in the hospital when he had informed Chief Vick of the events, Gus hadn't heard Shawn talk about it again. Not once. He had tried to prompt, had tried to make Shawn open up about what had happened and how badly it affected him, but no matter what he had tried, Shawn had blocked it all off.

Shawn's normal coping process involved acting out. Shawn had never been one to keep silent about his problems, at least not towards Gus.

But this time, he had acted as if nothing had happened.

He had given his statement at the police station, he had sat through Chief Vick's long-winded reprimands, he had silently accepted their four-week ban from the police station.

Maybe that behavior scared Gus the most, because the Shawn he knew would have immediately tried to figure out ways around that. The Shawn he knew would have seen it as nothing but yet another challenge he needed to overcome.

This time, Shawn had just silently taken it.

That fact scared Gus more than he cared to admit.

And honestly, the others weren't exactly helping.

Gus understood their motivations, he did. Chief Vick had to act in her role as Shawn's boss when she had temporarily banned from the station. Juliet was up to her throat in work now that Lassiter was out of commission. And Lassiter, while he had a lot of time on his hands, would certainly not make a step towards Shawn on his own.

Gus didn't even want to think about Henry Spencer's behavior, otherwise he'd only get angry.

What neither of them seemed to see was that right now, Shawn needed them. Gus didn't know exactly what he needed them to do, but he definitely needed them. Shawn had always been a person who depended far more on the people around him than he ever let on.

Gus didn't know why Shawn wouldn't confide in him. He was the one person Shawn was closest to. But then again, this was way out of his scope of experience. Maybe that was it. Maybe Shawn didn't want to burden Gus with what had happened, and maybe he thought that Gus wouldn't be able to help him because Gus simply couldn't relate to what had happened. But there were others in Shawn's life who could relate to what he was going through right now.

Chief Vick and Juliet were cops. So was Lassiter, and he had been there, for crying out loud. He knew what had happened, he had seen it happening. If anybody knew what Shawn was going through, it should be him.

And Mr. Spencer had been a cop for decades. He knew what having a gun pointed at you felt like, and he knew what it was like to raise a gun against somebody else.

But the Chief and Juliet were burying themselves in their work. Lassiter was sulking because of his suspension. And Mr. Spencer didn't get his head out of his ass – again.

Gus had watched all this go on for two weeks, but now he was royally fed up with it. If he didn't manage to draw Shawn out of whatever hole he was currently sinking into, he'd have to resort to other means. No matter whether Lassiter or Henry Spencer liked it.

Shawn had had more than two weeks to try and deal with things on his own. Enough was enough.

So Gus took the day off at work and drove to his friend's apartment.

Nobody answered when he rang the bell, but that didn't surprise him. It wasn't the first time that Shawn didn't open the door for him because he was silently brooding about something, and Gus had come prepared. He pulled the spare key Shawn had given him out of his pocket and unlocked the door.

It was locked, so Shawn wasn't home. Hesitantly, Gus entered Shawn's apartment and took a look around. Nothing seemed out of place; everything was tidy.

Gus stopped short.

Everything was tidy.

Shawn was a slob. His apartment was never dirty, but there were always traces of occupation clearly visible. A dirty dish in the sink, a pair of shoes kicked off carelessly, dirty socks in front of the bed.

But this time, Shawn's apartment was immaculate. No dirty laundry, no dirty dishes, nothing. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be.

Gus quickly went through the rooms, trying to figure out why exactly he was getting such a bad gut feeling about Shawn's apartment being so tidy. After all, Shawn had spent most of the two previous weeks here, maybe he had gone on a cleaning binge.

But that was it, Gus realized. Shawn didn't go on cleaning binges, no matter how much time he had on his hands. He tidied up when it was necessary, but he most certainly didn't bring everything in such an order just because he was bored.

Gus opened up the refrigerator. It was empty except for an unopened glass of olives and two bottles of water. No fresh fruit lying around – no pineapple anywhere in sight. In fact, nothing perishable was anywhere to be seen.

Gus' heart started beating fast in his chest and his gut tightened. Quickly, he hurried out of the apartment, locked up and sprinted back to his car.

He had waited too long, he should have known. He had waited, had hoped that somehow, things would turn out all right, and now it was too late.

But maybe, just maybe it wasn't too late yet. Maybe there was still one chance.

Gus didn't particularly care about the speed limit as he drove his car through Santa Barbara's mid-morning traffic. He reached the beach promenade and the Psych office in record time and quickly got out of the car. He didn't bother with locking the car, because as soon as he got out his eyes fell onto the sign at the office's front door.

Damn.

Slowly, as if the sign would jump at him and bite him, Gus approached the door and put his key into the lock.

The office door, too, was locked. Gus turned the key, opened the door and stepped into the office. The first thing he did was tear the sign down. Then, with the piece of paper balled up in his fist, he went over towards his desk and sat down heavily in his chair.

There was a post-it note on his desk. It hadn't been stuck to the desktop, but instead had been pinned to the pricks of Gus' cactus. If he had needed any hint that this was a note from Shawn, that would have been it.

Gus reached for the note and pulled it off the plant. It was just what he had expected. Short, to the point, and final.

_Sorry dude,_

_I'll let you know where I am as soon as I do._

_Shawn_

Gus bent forward and with slightly shaking fingers smoothed the sign he had torn from the front door out so that the two messages lay side by side. To the left, Shawn's message to Gus. To the right, the sign from the door.

_**Psych**_

_**Private Psychic Detective**_

_**Closed until further notice**_

Gus leaned back in his chair and stared unseeingly at the empty desk facing his.

He had been too late.

Shawn was gone.

---

_The End_

_---_

Yes, I know I promised you a long story. And I will hold true to that promise. After the Easter Holidays (which means some point next week), when I will start posting the sequel.

Never worry, the sequel is also finished already, and it will start up right where this story left off. But since the next story is going to go into a different direction altogether (while continuing this storyline), I thought it best to split it up into two stories.

In the meantime I'd be eternally glad if you let me know what you thought of this story. Thanks a lot!


End file.
